Page 61 of The Vagabond

“I don’t need to lose my job over you,” I whisper.

“I already lost my sanity over you,” he says, voice raw.

God.

I hate how he makes my heart twist. I hate how my body reacts to that voice, to those words. I hate that this man can barge into my life like a wrecking ball and make me feel safe and seen and completely unhinged all at once.

“You can’t just enter and exit my life whenever you feel like it, claiming a piece of me every time you go, Saxon,” I whisper, trembling. “You can’t make something out of nothing. We arenothing.”

His jaw clenches. He leans in, breath brushing my cheek.

“I’ll be damned if I let someone like him sink his claws into you while I stand here doing nothing.”

I swallow hard.

“I’m not yours to save.”

He stares at me for a long moment, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of my face, the quake in my voice.

“I know,” he says quietly. “But I can’t stop trying.”

26

MAXINE

It’s nearly midnight, and I have no business being out here. The streets are empty, the air’s too cold, and I’m walking in the dark like it’s routine. My hoodie is up and my keys are jammed between my fingers like brass knuckles in my pockets. A shudder skids up my spine as I start to second guess my choices.

Self-preservation? It left me days ago—packed up and vanished right around the time I started waking up screaming with Saxon’s scent still in my lungs.

I tell myself I’m going to the gym to burn off the restlessness. But that’s a lie.

I’m walking because the apartment feels too tight. Because I can’t sit still without feeling like I’m going to crawl out of my own skin. Because when the silence hits, it hitshard, and it sounds like his voice in my head, over and over:

“I was trying to protect you.”

Well, he failed. And so did I.

So now, I walk. At midnight. In the dark. Because part of me wants to feel something.

Anything. Even fear, danger; that adrenaline spike that comes with not knowing what’s around the corner.

My shoes echo off the pavement, each step louder than it should be. My heart’s racing, but it’s not anxiety—it’s defiance. Or maybe it’s desperation, when I just want to stopfeelingso much.

The gym’s six blocks away. I tell myself that’s reasonable. That I’ve walked this way before and nothing happened. That I’m fine.

But the shadows stretch longer tonight. The streetlights flicker like they know something I don’t.

I round the corner into the alley—a shortcut I’ve taken a dozen times before.

And that’s when I hear them. Footsteps. Fast. Heavy.Purposeful.I freeze. Then start to spin. And someone slams into me from behind.

I go down hard. Knees to the pavement. Keys skittering across the sidewalk. My palms scrape raw as concrete rips into my skin.

Then—there’s pain. Sharp and sudden.

There are fingers in my hair, yanking me back. My breath snags as I arch involuntarily. My vision tilts, nausea hitting me like a sucker punch.

I twist and catch a glimpse of him. Black mask. No logos. No eyes. Just emptiness.

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