CHAPTER SIX: THE SHAPE OF TRUST
539 Words
They hid in a town that didn’t want to be remembered.
It sat between a river and a highway, a scatter of buildings with peeling paint and boarded windows, the kind of place people passed through without looking twice. Adrian said that was exactly why it worked. Mira believed him—mostly because she wanted to.
They rented a room above a closed-down bookstore under false names. The owner, an old woman with cataract-clouded eyes, didn’t ask questions. Cash still had a way of quieting curiosity.
The room was small. One bed. One window. A bathroom that smelled faintly of bleach and rust.
Mira stood in the center of it, arms crossed, adrenaline finally bleeding out of her system. Her hands shook now that she was still.
“You okay?” Adrian asked.
She nodded automatically, then shook her head. “No. But I will be.”
He watched her with an intensity that made her feel both exposed and strangely safe. He always seemed to be watching—measuring exits, listening for sounds that didn’t belong—but when his gaze landed on her, it softened, as though she were something fragile he’d been tasked to protect.
That thought scared her more than the men hunting them.
“You didn’t hesitate back there,” Adrian said. “Most people freeze the first time.”
“I’m not most people.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not.”
She dropped onto the edge of the bed, rubbing her temples. Images replayed behind her eyes: glass shattering, the c***k of gunfire, the weight of Adrian’s body shielding hers.
“You took a bullet for me,” she said quietly.
“It grazed me.”
“That’s not the point.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and winced slightly. There was blood soaking through his shirt near his ribs.
Mira stood. “Sit.”
“I’m fine.”
“Adrian.”
Something in her tone made him comply. He sat on the bed, jaw tight, eyes never leaving her as she dug through her bag for the first aid kit she always carried. Old habits from a life she pretended she didn’t remember.
She cleaned the wound carefully. It wasn’t deep, but it was close enough to something vital to make her stomach twist.
“You always prepared like this?” he asked.
“I learned the hard way not to trust luck.”
His lips curved faintly. “I figured.”
Their proximity made the air feel heavy. Mira was acutely aware of every inch between them—how close his knee was to hers, the heat of his skin beneath her fingertips.
“Why do you stay?” she asked suddenly. “You could walk away.”
He stilled. “So could you.”
“I didn’t ask myself.”
Adrian looked at the floor for a long moment before answering. “Because I know what happens if I don’t.”
She swallowed. “To me?”
“To both of us.”
That answer lingered long after the bandage was secured and the light turned off.
They lay on opposite sides of the bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling.
Sleep did not come easily.
- Writer
