Page 78 of The Villain

“Don’t you want to go home?” he asked low, the question driving the wedge deep he wanted to use to separate himself from me.

He knew I couldn’t say no…because to say I wanted to stay meant I’d have to ignore all the signs he wanted me gone.

“Of course,” I answered, feigning a small smile as thoughhomewas the only thought on my mind for the last four weeks and nothim.

I wouldn’t ask about last night—not after the things he’d shared with me. The man who’d saved my life was tortured and wounded. And since when did any wounded creature let someone close because they demanded it or because they were backed into a corner? Never.

I wanted him to trust me again with his vulnerability, not to have to beg him for it. And if that wasn’t possible, then I’d learn to live with it. I’d learn to live without my sight for weeks, and if I could do that, I could certainly learn to live without the desire he ignited.

“Rorik—Dr. Nilsen said being home might help your brain heal faster. Something about being in a safe space.”

“That’s good.”Where was all my hope? All my optimism? Why couldn’t I seem to care about anything I’d just gained when it came with the price of losing him?

“I’ll help you get your things.”

My mouth felt like a funnel piled high with emotions, but my tongue wouldn’t let anything except athank youpass.The shuffle of clothes and belongings set the shadows in my sight to music. A crescendo of connection that would quickly fade into the soft silence of separation.

“Oh.” His footsteps came closer. “We found your paintings at the house.”

“Oh, good.”My art. My show.The future I’d started to create.For some reason, it didn’t seem real. Like a painting with a tear in the canvas. No matter how I tried to paint around it, there was something unalterably changed by what had happened. Something I couldn’t gloss over.Because I’d met him.

“When they finish with the scene, I can take them to your house or the gallery.” He could return all the pieces of me back to the way he’d found them.

“The house is fine. Thank you.”

He grunted.“I think I have everything.”

“There wasn’t much,” I said, unable to keep the sadness from my voice. It felt like I’d lived a whole other life here in this safe house, but in reality, it was nothing more than borrowed time with a broken brain.

His shadow loomed closer, and his arm reached out and then dropped. He struggled to reach for me, and he either forgot or didn’t realize that I could see enough now to make that out.

“Are you ready?”

When I nodded, he reached for my hand and guided me from the cabin like before—a steady touch to let me know he was there, murmuring instructions or warnings when we approached any stairs or steps. He made it easy to rely on him—too easy to trust him to take care of me even in my most vulnerable moments.

And all I wanted was to make it that easy for him.

The concrete echoed our concerted steps, but this time, he led me in a different direction through the garage.

“Put this on.” He released my hand, only to slide something heavy and thick over my shoulders.A leather jacket.My fingertips crept over the firm fabric, the worn creases, and the emblems stitched into the sleeves.

“What is this for?” I slid my arms into the sleeves.

“We’re taking my bike.”

I’d never been on a motorcycle before. For all the risks and gambles Brandon liked to take, motorcycles had never been one of them.

But sitting on the back of the massive bike, holding onto its equally massive driver, I never felt safer. Maybe safe was a relative term. My life was no longer in danger; my heart, though, remained in the greatest peril.

I closed my eyes behind the helmet, my body moving and swaying with the meandering shape of the roads, the bike like a rubber-coated paintbrush, bleeding a soot-streaked path back to my house.

I could tell when we got closer. The familiar pattern of turns off the highway. The slower speed. The heartbeat-like reel of shadows blurring through my broken brain. It wasn’t only the jacket he’d given me—there were also the large aviators underneath the visor of the helmet. Now that I had a vaguedistinction between light and shadow, the temptation to look—to stare—was even greater.

My body pressed to the back of his as we slowed, and I knew we were at my house. I felt it—that coming home feeling like a warm quilt over my shoulders.

Once he’d parked, his hand found my waist and guided me off the bike first, following himself a second later. I prayed he didn’t feel the flutter of my pulse as he undid my helmet.

“Thank you,” I murmured, his shadow blurring across my vision. “For everything.”

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