Page 79 of Diesel
His hands hover over me, as if he doesn’t know where to put them.
If he can touch me.
“Firefly…” That name, the one that usually settles everything inside me, lands like a grenade between us. Broken and rasped, like it cost him everything to say it.
He scans me with haunted eyes, the same ones that looked at me like that the night he killed —
“It’s not…” The words get stuck. I clear my throat, try again. “It’s not mine.”
I expect relief. I don’t get it. He doesn’t care that it’s not mine. He cares that I’m wearing it like a fucking canvas. A portrait of trauma.
“She’s not hurt,” Dayna says in a soft voice. It feels like a gunshot in the quiet.
Zane doesn’t tear his eyes from mine. Like he thinks I’ll disappear if he looks away.
I’m not hurt, but I’m covered in Chloe’s blood. My breath hitches, elastic bands tighten around my lungs. “Get it off.”
“You’re okay?—”
I don’t know who says it. I don’t care. All I can feel isthe sticky warmth of someone else’s blood on me. “Get it off! Get it off!”
I wipe my hands down myself as if I can clean my skin, but most of it is dried, staining my skin.
I think I scream it. I’m not sure. My mind is unspooling.
And then his hands grab my face. Not hard, not painfully, but insistent. He’s cold, or maybe I am. I can’t tell. He grips me tight, not to ground me, but to stop me shaking.
“Makenna, eyes on me.”
I don’t know if it’s the command in his voice, or that my body recognises he’s my safe place, but I lift my lashes.
He’s breathing like he’s run a marathon, not crossed the room, his jaw so tight he looks angry, but he’s not. He’s holding on by the skin of his teeth.
“Zane.” His name cracks like glass shattering. Everything feels wrong.Ifeel wrong.
His thumb swipes under my eye, back and forth. Calm. Like he can stroke the fear out of me. Out of himself, too.
“I’m here.”
It’s such a small thing to say, but those screws tightening around my chest loosen just a fraction. He is here. I’m safe. Protected.
He straightens out of his crouch, looming over me like a mountain. And that’s what he is. Everest at my back. My rock.
There is no flinch this time when he cups my elbows and guides me to my feet. I lift out of the chair with his help, but my legs wobble the moment I’m upright, and my head swims.
He doesn’t let go, not for second, and his eyes don’t leave mine.
He’s reading every flicker of emotion on my face, cataloguing, analysing.
Reassure him… Tell him you’re fine.
But I can’t because I’m not okay. There isn’t enough time in the world to erase what I saw in that room.
I can hear the hum of voices behind me, footsteps and tension that feels too heavy, but I can’t lock in on anything but the pounding in my ears. I think I hear her name, mine too, but I can’t latch onto the words.
I take one step. Just one and then he scoops me into his arms. I should object, but I don’t. I loop my arms around his neck, bury my head into his chest and I try to unclench every muscle in my body.
“Firefly, I need to put you down.”
