THE ONE WHO RAN AWAY

Chapter 4 — Home Doesn't Feel Safe Anymore

Théo's POV

Lyon, France

Charles de Gaulle airport received me the way it always did —

Coldly. Efficiently. Without any interest in where I had been or what I had left behind.

I moved through the terminal on autopilot. Passport control. Baggage claim. The long corridor toward the exit where the air smelled like coffee and cleaning products and France — familiar in a way that should have felt like relief.

It didn't.

The flight from Bangkok had taken eleven hours. Eleven hours of sitting in a window seat with my collar pulled up and my eyes fixed on nothing and my mind doing the one thing I had specifically told it not to do —

Going back to that room.

The dim ceiling. The expensive sheets. The pain I had swallowed silently while moving through that suite like a ghost. The red corner of the sheet I had stared at for exactly three seconds before making myself look away and never look back.

Stop.

I picked up my bag from the carousel and walked toward the exit without stopping.

Lyon was three hours from Paris by train. I sat in a window seat again — different window, same unseeing stare — and watched France blur past in the grey early morning light. Fields. Towns. The slow familiar landscape of a country that had no idea I had left or returned or quietly fallen apart somewhere over the Indian Ocean at 3AM.

What if he finds out who I am.

The thought arrived without warning somewhere between Mâcon and Lyon and sat in my chest like a stone.

What if the footage wasn't deleted properly. What if someone saw something. What if there's a record somewhere — a name, a face, a credit card transaction — what if he's already looking—

Stop.

I pressed my fingers against my knee and breathed slowly.

He doesn't know your name. He doesn't know your face. You paid cash. You deleted everything. There is nothing to find.

The train pulled into Lyon Part-Dieu station.

I picked up my bag and walked out into the cold Lyon morning — grey sky, familiar streets, the Rhône somewhere beyond the buildings moving the way it always moved, steady and indifferent and entirely unbothered.

You're home. You're safe. It's over.

I said it to myself three times on the taxi ride to my apartment.

I almost believed it by the third time.

My apartment was exactly as I had left it.

Dark. Quiet. Undisturbed.

I dropped my bag inside the door and stood in the entrance for a moment — just stood there — letting the silence settle around me like something solid. The familiar smell of my own space. The particular quality of light through my particular curtains. Everything exactly where I had left it two days ago when I had walked out at 2AM with one bag and a boarding pass and absolutely no plan.

I took my phone out of my pocket.

Switched it off.

Not silent. Not do not disturb.

Off.

I didn't want notifications. I didn't want Noah's name appearing on my screen again — that last call still sitting in my chest like something unfinished and heavy. I didn't want work emails or missed messages or anything that required me to be a functioning person for at least the next several hours.

I locked the front door.

Then the deadbolt.

Then I stood there with my hand still on the lock for a moment longer than necessary — just feeling the solid weight of it — before walking to my bedroom.

I didn't unpack. Didn't shower. Didn't eat.

I just sat on the edge of my bed in the grey Lyon morning light and stared at the wall and told myself very firmly that I was going to sleep and tomorrow everything would feel smaller and more manageable and less like the ground had shifted permanently beneath my feet.

I lay down.

Closed my eyes.

His hands. The warmth of him. The sounds I hadn't meant to make.

My eyes opened.

Stop.

I turned onto my side. Pulled the blanket up. Closed my eyes again.

The red corner of the sheet. The bite marks on my skin. The shirt that smelled like someone I would never see again—

I sat up.

Ran both hands through my hair and held them there for a moment — elbows on knees, head bowed — breathing slowly in the dark of my Lyon bedroom.

It was one night, I told myself. One night that you don't even fully remember. People have one night stands. It happens. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change anything. You are the same person you were before Bangkok. You are going to sleep and go back to work and it is going to be exactly as if it never—

Three knocks.

I went completely still.

Sharp. Clear. Unmistakable.

Someone at my front door.

I didn't move for a full three seconds.

It's the middle of the night. The thought arrived very quietly. Nobody knocks at this hour. Nobody knows I'm back. I didn't tell anyone I was coming home.

Nobody knows I'm here.

I stood up slowly. Moved to the door without turning on any lights — some instinct keeping me quiet, keeping me careful — and pressed my eye to the peephole.

A man.

Standing in the dim corridor outside my door.

My heart stopped.

Tall. Dark jacket. Head slightly bowed — I couldn't see his face properly through the distortion of the peephole glass but I could see enough. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. Standing completely still outside my door in the middle of the night like he had every right to be there.

No.

My hand flew to my mouth.

No. No. It can't be—

My heart was loud in my own ears now. Too loud. The kind of loud that makes it hard to think properly. I pressed closer to the door — barely breathing — watching the man in the corridor through the small circle of warped glass.

How. How did he find me. I deleted everything. I paid them. I made sure there was nothing—

The man shifted.

Knocked again — different door, slightly to the left — and then I heard it.

A voice. Low. Slightly slurred. Distinctly unbothered.

"Chérie? Chérie open up it's me— wait. Wait this isn't — Claude this isn't our floor—"

Another voice somewhere further down the corridor. Female. Exasperated.

"I told you. Third floor. You pressed two."

"They look the same—"

"They don't look the same—"

Footsteps. Retreating. The sound of the elevator doors opening somewhere down the hall.

Then silence.

I stood at my door for a long moment.

Then I stepped back.

Leaned against the wall beside it and slid down slowly until I was sitting on the floor of my own hallway in the dark — knees up, head back against the wall, eyes closed — and let out a breath so long and so shaky it embarrassed me even with no one there to hear it.

A drunk man.

It was just a drunk man on the wrong floor.

I pressed the back of my head against the wall and stared at the ceiling of my dark hallway.

Okay, I told myself. Okay. It's okay. Everything is okay.

My heart was still loud.

I pressed my hand flat against my chest like that would help.

Théo. Firm. Internal. The voice I used on myself when I was being unreasonable. It was one night. One night that nobody knows about. He doesn't have your name. He doesn't have your face. He doesn't know what city you live in or what country you're from or that you even exist as a specific person in the world.

You are not being followed.

You are not being found.

You panicked over a drunk man on the wrong floor.

I closed my eyes.

It was a one night stand. That's all. Something that happened and is finished and will never intersect with your real life in any way.

People have one night stands.

You are allowed to have had one night stand.

It doesn't define you. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change—

His hands. His warmth. The way that night had felt like something.

I cut the thought off before it could finish.

Stood up from the floor.

Walked back to my bedroom in the dark.

Lay down.

Pulled the blanket up to my chin like I was seven years old and the blanket was still the kind of thing that kept the world out.

It's over, I told myself one final time.

It's done.

Forget it.

I closed my eyes.

And somewhere between Lyon's grey morning and the exhaustion of eleven hours on a plane and the slowly fading sound of my own heartbeat —

I almost did.