Page 136 of Rose
“What happened?” she whispered, nodding toward the long cut under his heart.
He didn’t flinch. “I got stabbed.”
“On a mission?” she asked, pausing the gun.
He shook his head. “Nah. My father.”
Ahzii’s eyes widened, heart tightening as she stared at him. He said it so casually, like it was an afterthought. Like it was normal.
“I messed up during target practice,” he continued, voice flat. “He beat my ass black and blue. But I stopped reacting. I guess that pissed him off… so he grabbed a blade and sliced me up a few times.”
The air left her lungs. “What? Savior, how old were you?”
He took another hit from the blunt and passed it to her.
“Eight.”
Eight.
Ahzii’s stomach dropped. “You werea baby.No child—no person—deserves that.”
“I was never a child, Allure,” he said, staring at the ceiling like it held all the answers he’d stopped looking for. “Even at eight, I was a grown-ass man. Had to take consequences like one.”
There was no emotion in his voice. Only acceptance. Like he truly believed it. Like the pain was just… part of the process.
She looked at him—really looked. Past the tattoos and the bravado. To the boy who bled and was never held. Her heart ached for him in a way that shocked her.
“Can I kiss it?” she asked softly, surprising even herself.
His eyes flicked to hers, confused.
“I’m serious,” she said gently, cutting off the buzz of the gun. “Remember when you told me you’d kiss my scars once I patched myself up?”
He stared at her, stunned that she remembered.
“Yeah…” he answered, voice low.
“Well,” she whispered, “I want to do the same for you.”
A slow smirk tugged at his lips. “Ms. No Emotional Attachment?”
She smiled. “Shut up. But hearing what your father did to you… it broke something in me. I just—I want you to know what comfort feels like. Even if it’s small. Even if it’s just this.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded once, slowly.
Ahzii leaned in, brushing her lips over the scar beneath his heart. It was soft. Gentle. But there was weight in that kiss—tender and deep, like she was trying to heal what no one else ever bothered to touch.
Savior closed his eyes, jaw clenched.
That kiss didn’t just land on his skin. It sank into the parts of him that still ached after all these years. For the first time in a long time, something cracked open inside him, quietly, painfully… beautifully.
“Where was your mother when this happened?” Ahzii asked, breaking the silence as she resumed shading the tattoo. She pulled from the blunt he’d just passed, the smoke hanging heavy between them like truth too thick to ignore.
“In the next room,” Savior answered flatly. “She walked in. Saw him beating me… and didn’t stop him.”
His tone cut sharp. His jaw clenched hard enough to pop. It was the most emotion he’d shown—notwhen speaking about the beating, but about the woman who let it happen. Ahzii felt it. Felt it all.
“That hurt worse than the beating, didn’t it?” she asked softly.
