Page 62 of The Vagabond

“Stay down,” he growls, breath thick with alcohol. “You’re prettier when you don’t fight.”

Fuck that. I kick. Hard. Trainers to thigh. He stumbles. I scramble to my feet, lungs burning, blood racing.

“You picked the wrong girl,” I snap.

But my voice is trembling, and I know he hears the shake, because he laughs, low and ugly.

“Nah. I picked just right.”

He lunges at me again. I duck. My fist connects with something soft. He grunts but grabs the back of my hoodie and throws me into the wall.

Pain ricochets through my shoulder. My vision goes white around the edges. My elbow scrapes brick, blood soaking the sleeve.

Still—I fight. Because I’m not just scared. I’m furious. Furious at him. At myself for being the kind of girl who can’t stop walking into fire just to feel the burn.

The man slams me back a second time, forearm across my throat. And I lose it. I’m full of havoc as I claw at his mask. I drive my thumb into his eye.

“You don’t get to touch me!” I scream.

He reels back with a snarl. And then there’s a gunshot. It’s close, echoing like thunder between the buildings. My heart stops. He freezes.

“Step the fuck away from her.”

That voice.

Thatfuckingvoice.

Saxon.

He steps out of the dark like a ripple, and the man stumbles back. Then Saxon’s on him like a warrior descending from the shadows—fast, brutal, unrelenting. Fists flying. Blood spraying. A blur of violence and vengeance. And when it’s over, the man doesn’t get up. He’s not breathing. His face is a ruin. His limbs a tangle. He looks less like a man and more like an avenging angel.

He stands over him, chest rising like he’s still trying to shake the wrath out of his lungs. His knuckles are slick with blood, his jacket soaked through at the collar. There’s a slash across his jaw—shallow, but still bleeding. But he doesn’t wipe it away. He just turns to me. And the second his eyes find mine—those storm-tossed green eyes that always see too much—something in him shifts. Like the fight drains out of him all at once.

“Max…”

It’s barely a whisper. A breath. A prayer. And I break. My knees buckle beneath me, the shock finally catching up. I hit the ground in a graceless collapse—sobbing, shaking, folding in on myself like a body in mourning. Because I am. Mourning what almost happened. Mourning what keeps happening. Mourning the fact that I can’t outrun the damage in me.

Saxon drops down beside me without hesitation, his arms catching me before I completely fall apart. He pulls me in, cradling me like I’m made of glass. He makes me feel like I’m still something worth saving. And maybe I am. Maybe that’s why I keep walking into the dark. Not because I want to be saved— But because I want him to be the one to find me. Even when I don’t call.Especiallywhen I don’t.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper against the blood-stiff fabric of his shirt, my words nearly lost in the sound of my own wreckage.

His hand finds the back of my head, gentle as it skims over my hair. “My beautiful, reckless Maxine.”

“I don’t want to need you.” My words come out strangled. Half a cry, half a confession.

“I know,” he says, voice hoarse. Wrecked in a different way.

“I hate that I do.”

“I know,” he repeats, softer this time, like it hurts him to agree.

And then he does the one thing I wasn’t ready for.

He holds me. Not like a possession, not like something he earned or took or owns—but like I’m a secret he’s been keeping. A wound he refuses to let close. His arms are steel and safety. His hand moves slowly, rhythmically, down the length of my hair. As if he’s trying to calm the storm with nothing but touch.

And I don’t let go. I can’t let go. Because I’m tired. Of pretending.Of running. Of acting like I don’t crave the one man who keeps showing up—in alleys, in nightmares, in the bleeding cracks of my soul.

Saxon North finds me in the dark. Every damn time. Even when I’m too broken to ask for help. Especially then.

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