Page 50 of The Vagabond

I corner her against the wall, arms caging her in, breath hot between us.

“Yeah?” I growl. “Then why haven’t you thrown me out yet?”

“Fuck you.”

“Why haven’t you thrown me out, Maxine? Why haven’t you screamed?”

“I should screamnow,” she snaps, glaring at me like she could set me on fire. “You’re deranged. You’re dangerous. You’re?—”

“I’myours,Maxine.”

The words rip out of me like a confession. Like a death sentence. Her mouth parts. Her breath stutters. I lean in.

“I’m yours,” I repeat, softer now, voice hoarse. “I tried to stay away. I tried to let you go. But you’re in my goddamn veins. I wake up with your name on my tongue and blood rushing to my brain. Every second I’m not near you, I’m burning.”

I slam my hand against the wall beside her head—not to scare her. To ground myself. To stop myself from doing something absolutely crazy.

She’s shaking now, but I know she’s not afraid of me. She’s shaking because she knows. Sheknows.

“You’re deranged,” she whispers, chest rising rapidly. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

“I don’t know how to be anything other than unhinged when it comes to you,” I whisper. “I never learned. But I’d die for you. I’d kill for you. I would burn the entire fucking world if it meant you'd feel safe for one goddamn night.”

I drop my forehead to hers, breathing hard. My hands shake as they rest against the wall, caging her in, aching to touch her. To hold her. To worshipher.

“I’m not safe,” I tell her. “I’m not sane. But I’m yours. I havealwaysbeen yours.”

And in this moment—this violent, sacred silence, I think that she believes me. Not because I’ve earned it. But because she’s fire. And I’m the only one who walked into her flames and stayed.

She doesn’t say anything. She just breathes. She stares. She shakes. And then—like a storm finally touching down—she erupts. Her palms slam against my chest, not to push me away, but to punish me. To bruise. To break.

“I hate you,” she sobs. “You don’t get to do this to me. You don’t get to come back and say all the things I’ve been dying to hear like it fixes anything!”

I let her hit me. Again. And again. Her fists lose their strength. Her voice cracks.

“You disappeared,” she whispers, shattered. “I waited for you. Every night, I waited. And you never came.”

“I know,” I say, throat raw. “I know.”

She crumples. I catch her before she hits the floor. She shoves at me weakly, but I don’t let go.

“I thought you were dead.I thought they buried you in some ditch. And part of me—part of me wished you were, because it would’ve hurt less than knowing you chose not to come back.”

That one lands where it hurts most. It tears something open in my chest so deep I don’t think I’ll ever be able to close it again.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I rasp, the words scraping up my throat like glass. “I was in so deep, Maxine. If I broke cover—if I evenbreathedwrong—they would’ve killed you. You think I wanted to walk away?” My voice cracks. “I saw what they did to the girls they took. I watched them break them, sell themlike they were nothing. I couldn’t save you if I got caught or died.”

I take a step closer, voice low, dangerous.

“But don’t think for a second I forgot you. Your name—Maxine—it’s embedded in me. In my skin. In my fucking bones. I carried it like a weapon and a wound every single day I had to pretend you were just another case file.”

She pulls away, eyes wide and wet and angry.

“Don’t pretend like you cared!” she screams. “Don’t stand in this room and talk about carving my name into your skin when you left me!”

Tears streak her face. Mascara like warpaint. Her lip is bitten, cracked, bleeding. She looks like a goddess—ruined and raging—and I can’t do anything but ache for her.

“I hear your voice,” I whisper. “In the dark. Still. I don’t sleep without it anymore.”

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