I adjust her weight carefully, shift her onto the mattress. She doesn’t resist. Limbs loose. No defense mechanisms. That in itself is... noteworthy.
I pull the blanket over her and take a step back, watching as she curls slightly in on herself. Protective posture. Instinctual.Trauma does that—rewires the nervous system. Trains the body to expect pain in moments of stillness.
I don't touch her again. I just watch her for a few seconds longer.
In another world, she would be mine—uncomplicated, public, permanent. There’d be no secrets. No power imbalances. No ethical lines to toe. I would have carved Marcus open the moment he spoke Jasmine’s name, sliced him end to end for what he did to Kelly. I still think about it. About the mess I’d make of him. But Landon—always the moral compass in wolves’ clothing—asked me to let him handle it. So I did. I waited. Watched. Calculated.
But in this world, I have to play the long game. In this world, Jasmine’s a student, and I’m the professor who’s supposed to ignore the way her lips part when she’s lost in thought. Who’s supposed to grade her essays and not think about how she moans. I’m standing in a teenager’s bedroom—pastel sheets, chipped furniture, some ridiculous candle burning on the nightstand that smells like vanilla and sex and safety.
And the girl sleeping in that bed is failing my class. Not because she’s stupid. Because she’s been too busy surviving. Too busy navigating death threats and secret missions and the tangle of violence we’ve all dragged her into.
The optics are catastrophic, but at least her apartment building is off campus even if it just five blocks away from my fucking office. I exhale hard through my nose, rub the heel of my palm against my jaw, and walk out before I do something irreversible.
The living room is dim, washed in blue from the TV screen still playing some muted sitcom. Landon’s stretched out on thecouch, boots off, a cigarette tucked between his fingers. The second he sees me, he lifts the pack and flicks it once.
“You want one?”
I hesitate. Then I nod. “Yeah. Fuck it.”
I don’t say thank you but I take the cigarette Landon offers and slide it between my lips. He holds his out, still lit, and I lean in, catching the flame with a clean inhale. Smoke fills my throat and sharply coats my lungs.
I drop down next to him on the couch without a word. The leather groans under my weight, the silence between us thick with the kind of history no one talks about out loud. The TV’s still playing something muted and ridiculous—blue light flickering across the room like static, like ghosts. I don’t look at it.
Landon leans his head back, cigarette trailing a thin ribbon of smoke toward the ceiling fan. “I guess pigs are flying.”
I drag from mine, slow and deep. “What?”
He chuckles, that lazy, low sound that always makes me want to break his nose or buy him a drink. Sometimes both. “You’re taking care of my girl.”
“You could’ve carried her if you wanted.”
“You bolted out of the car like your ass was on fire,” he mutters. “Wasn’t a damn thing I could do.”
I exhale through my nose, the smoke helping mask the heat crawling up my spine. I don’t say anything, but Landon chuckles to himself.
“You weren’t even this concerned about Kelly.”
I roll my shoulders back, the tension coiling up my arms as I flick the cigarette ash into the frog ashtray on the coffee table. Landon kicks his feet up.
“She was like a sister to you,” Landon goes on, his voice curling with humor. “But you never looked at her the way you look at Jasmine. Never chased after her when she was hurting.”
I grind my teeth, pulse thumping against the side of my neck. “I would fucking hope not, she was a sister.”
“Look, I’m just saying?—”
“Don’t, Landon.”
He flicks ash into the tray, sighs. “I’m not trying to fight. But fuck, man. The last time I saw you this invested in someone was…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t have to.
Landon shifts beside me. “I didn’t mean to?—”
“Yeah, you did.” My voice slices through the room.
I flick my cigarette into the ashtray, sparks biting the rim, and stand up too fast. My nerves feel too close to the surface, hot and twitching. I move to the window without thinking, needing the glass, the dark, the distance from his voice and everything it drags out of me.
I plant my hands on the sill and stare out at the city—black, cold, indifferent. Lights buzz and blink like dying nerves. A thousand lives happening all at once. And here I am, still haunted by just one.
