Page 50 of Revert
The future was closing in, with no way for me to stop it.
My temples throbbed, my mind torn between contradictions. Images collided—Castiel lifting the blade to strike me down, him blocking one aimed at my heart. His hand that had once ended my life, only to now save it. The memories spiraled in a dizzying loop of what was and what might be, making it impossible to separate truth from fear, past from present.
Yet even through the oppressive fear twisting inside me, I couldn’t let go of the fragile hope that this divergence might lead to an ending far different than the one I remembered.
I didn’t moveas Castiel slowly crouched before me. He looked like he wanted to pull me into his arms, but he remained still—offering no threat, only quiet presence, as if waiting for the memory he had no reason to know about to pass.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Bernice,” he repeated earnestly. “I had no reason to lie to a man I was about to kill. I am sincere in my determination to protect you.”
For once I detected no manipulation, just the echo of something real. And still, he didn’t touch me, waiting for me to come to him. That restraint undid me.
“No, stay away.” Though I pleaded for distance, my words and actions seemed to be at a disconnect. The moment he drew closer I reached for him. For in the end, Castiel had protected me. Even when I had doubted him, or had tried not to care.
My fingers trembled as they seized the front of his tunic, clutching the fabric in aching confusion and the desperate need to anchor myself. Even though part of me still screamed to flee, I folded into him. At this silent invitation, he carefully gathered me into his embrace.
Sense tried to convince me that his arms were the last place I wanted to be, yet for all my resistance before, I didn’t want to leave.
I allowed those same arms that had once ended my life to hold me. I nestled closer, burrowing myself in the protection he offered, a rare pocket of safety and security.
What was happening to me?
Gradually the haunting tendrils entangling my thoughts and stoking my confusion subsided, enough for me to realize he was stroking my back. I instinctively pressed closer, relishing the feel of the firm contours of his chest against my cheek, finding solace from the echo of my murder in the only place that had ever felt like shelter.
“Please don’t kill me,” I whispered. “I don’t want to die.”
He stiffened, as if my words had struck him somewhere deeply. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear on my life, Bernice.”
“Liar. You’re a murderer.” Even so, my hold tightened around him with no intention of ever letting go.
He didn’t deny it, but after a moment’s hesitation—as if he feared he was unworthy to touch me after what he’d done—he tentatively stroked my hair, with such aching gentleness it was hard to believe that very hand had once been stained with blood.
“I don’t kill lightly,” he murmured. “But sometimes…I have no choice.”
No choice?Had he been bound that night in the dungeon as well? My mind felt too fractured to sort out this complicated riddle.
A sudden noisebroke the stillness. I tensed. Castiel’s hand shot beneath his cloak, fingers closing around the hilt of a concealed dagger. His eyes scanned the shadows, sharp and wild as he hunted for movement, another threat lying in wait to strike.
My grip on him tightened. “Is it…another assassin?” I whispered.
He didn’t answer immediately, every muscle in his body drawn taut, poised to strike or shield. “No,” he said at last, though his voice was low and wary. “But we’re too exposed. The guards could return at any moment.”
His hand slowly released the dagger, slipping it back into its sheath with practiced ease, before picking up the sword he’d dropped earlier. Guilt filled his eyes as they met mine, as if he feared I’d recoil now that I knew he’d been secretly armed while comforting me.
Even with fear still threading through my thoughts, there was no moment I’d been more defenseless than enfolded in the comfort of the man I should fear most. But I didn’t pull away. Even amid blood and death and the lingering weight of everything he’d done, the trust I had lost in the face of fear was somehow beginning to return.
A sharp pain lanced through my shoulder as he helped me to my feet. I gasped, staggering against him. His eyes dropped to the dark stain spreading through the fabric of my gown, also smeared across his tunic from when he held me.
Distress twisted his expression. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.” A pointless lie considering the evidence smeared across my gown and also staining his tunic from when he’d held me.
His hand hovered just above the wound, as though afraid that even the brush of air might hurt me. His jaw clenched as he examined it in the dim light. “You need that wound cleaned, but this isn’t the place.” He scanned the corridor again. “I need to get you somewhere we won’t be found.”
I made to follow, but after a few faltering steps my knees buckled. Strong arms swept beneath me in one fluid motion, one under my knees that had given out while the other wrapped gently around my back. I let out a soft gasp, more from surprise than pain. Time stilled as we stared at one another. His firm and steadying hold anchored me like a lighthouse in the dark, a harbor I had already grown used to and never wanted to leave.
He was the first to sever his gaze. He cleared his throat. “We’ll take the back passageways. No one will see us. I’ll get you to the room we were trapped in before. It should be safe.”
He began to carry me down the corridor, his footsteps barely a whisper against stone. I didn’t protest—the warmth of his arms, the steadiness pressed close—silenced any resistance. Blood throbbed at my shoulder, quickly darkening his tunicwhere it soaked into him. I closed my eyes and let my head rest against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat grounding me.
