"Maybe someday I'll tell you," I said, resuming my work. “After I forgive you for kidnapping me.”
He shrugged. “Better than killing you.”
"How considerate," I replied dryly.
I applied another antiseptic swab, harder than necessary.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“You watched me,” I said, voice sharp. "For weeks. In my home. My private moments. When I thought I was alone."
His expression shifted from playful to serious in an instant. "Yes."
No excuses. No deflection. Just a simple acknowledgment that dropped between us like a stone. I hadn't expected such straightforward honesty, and it knocked me off-balance more effectively than any defense could have.
"Did you watch me shower?" I pressed, needing to know the extent of the violation. "Change? Sleep?"
"Yes." His eyes held mine, unflinching. “I saw everything.”
I should have been disgusted. Should have walked away and left him to his infection and fever. But the absence of either apology or pleasure in the confession kept me rooted in place, hands steady on his wounds.
"Did you see me cry after my mother's birthday?" I asked, voice lower now. "When I couldn't call her because she's been dead for five years?"
A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Yes."
I pressed the antiseptic harder against his wound, savoring his sharp intake of breath. "And did you enjoy that part of the show?"
"No," he said, the single syllable carrying unexpected weight. "That was the night I first questioned the contract."
The admission hung between us, raw and unexpected. I resumed cleaning his wounds, hands steadier now. This bizarre intimacy of him having seen me at my most vulnerable while I now tended his injuries created a strange power dynamic neither of us fully controlled.
"I've never watched a target for this long before," he croaked out, eyes closed. "Three weeks instead of hours. You were... different."
"Different how?" I asked, despite myself.
"You saw people," he said simply. "Really saw them. The homeless woman, your patients. Your fucking plants. You remembered details, noticed things. It was..."
"Unsettling?" I supplied.
"Fascinating," he corrected. His fever-bright eyes locked onto mine with unsettling intensity. "You were the first target I ever saw as a person. Not just an assignment."
"That doesn't help," I said, though something in me responded to his words. "Not when I'm cleaning blood from the hands meant to end me."
"I never decided to kill you. That’s how we got here, remember?”
I froze, caught by the raw vulnerability in his voice. Something electric passed between us, dangerous and magnetic. For a heartbeat, I wanted to press my mouth against his split lip, taste the copper of his blood, feel the fire burning through him.
The urge terrified me. What the hell was wrong with me?
"Hold still," I said instead, applying butterfly bandages to the gash. My hands betrayed a slight tremor, not from fear but from restraining the impulse to touch him beyond what was medically necessary. "This needs stitches, but this will have to do."
"The asclepiad has better equipment," he suggested, watching me too closely. "We could head there tomorrow."
"Which reminds me. The man at the entrance mentioned someone named Rhadamanthys. Who is he?" I moved on to tend to his knuckles.
"One of the Judges. Think Supreme Court Justice meets mob enforcer with a Greek mythology fetish." His attempt at lightness couldn't mask the gravity in his eyes. "He only comes for serious problems."
"Like us," I saidquietly.
