Page 76 of Visions of Darkness

As if he were allowing himself to relish the connection before his powerful gaze opened to me. “My purpose is to take care of you, Aria. To protect you until we figure out how to keep you safe.”

There was a warning behind it.

A rejection I understood, but one that still slayed.

We couldn’t be together. Not the way I wanted us to be. This was temporary. And I had no idea about his life here.

Who he loved and who he held.

Here? He was all but a stranger to me.

Pain clutched my chest, this love I’d kept secreted away, throbbing from within and seeking a way out.

He began to tend to my feet, swiping an alcohol pad over the cuts before he applied an ointment.

“That should help,” he murmured as he pushed to standing, though he remained right there, an inch away, his presence rippling over me in waves.

“Thank you.” I could barely force it out.

His nod was slow. “You need to sleep. Rest so you can heal.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m going to keep watch. Once you wake up, I’ll sleep for a couple hours.”

“Are you—”

“Don’t worry about me, Aria,” he said as he turned away.

Did he think that was possible? That he didn’t count? That he didn’t matter to me?

But I couldn’t argue with him or make him see right then.

Exhaustion was setting in.

The lack of sleep and the weight of the fear catching up.

The adrenaline from earlier had drained, and it’d left my limbs heavy, my mind muddled with too many things.

Four days ago, I’d been a senior in high school, contemplating how I was going to leave my family once I graduated.

Heartbroken over leaving them behind but knowing it was the only way I might be able to live in any semblance of peace.

Now everything had changed.

The shaky facade of my normalcy rocked.

My foundation cracked.

Now on the run with a man I was never supposed to meet.

I shifted to pull the scratchy covers down and slid under them, facing away as I pressed my eyes closed.

I hovered there in the nothingness.

In that shimmery space between awake and asleep.

And the moment before my spirit detached, I heard Pax’s whisper somewhere in the distance. “Happy birthday, Aria.”

---