Page 98 of Carrick
I stepped inside the barn and let the door close softly behind me. The scent of hay and cedar shavings filled the air, grounding and familiar. A few strands of golden straw clung to Bellamy’s boot. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her calves. She didn’t turn. Didn’t acknowledge me. But she knew I was there. I felt the shift in her body. The hitch in her breath.
So I walked closer. No sudden moves. No authority in my voice. “You okay?” I asked quietly. No response. She stared at the straw-covered floor like it held some secret truth she hadn’t yet uncovered.
I waited. Let the silence stretch. Finally, after what felt like a full minute, she spoke—voice low and hoarse. “I wasn’t trying to start a fight.”
“I know.”
“I just wanted someone tolisten.”
“I’m listening now,” I said.
She let out a laugh, short and brittle. It scraped something inside me. “Too late.”
She stood then—too fast. Her whole body jolted with the motion, and she started pacing, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to keep her skin from splitting open.
“You looked at me like I was crazy,” she said, turning sharply on her heel. “Like I was selfish. Like I was putting everyone at risk just because I needed tobreathe.You think I wanted this? To be erased? To be pitied? I was just starting to feel likea person again, and now I feel like a shadow with a tracking number.”
My jaw tightened. “I never said you were selfish.”
“You didn’t have to,” she whispered, spinning to face me. “It’s in your eyes, Carrick. Every time I raise my voice. Every time I take up space. You look at me like I’m a variable you can’t solve.”
I didn’t look away. “Maybe I just don’t know how to watch someone come apart and not try to fix it.”
Her eyes shimmered, but the fire didn’t leave them. “You don’t get tofixme. That’s not what I need.”
“What do you need?”
“I need you to see me.” She took a step closer, like it hurt to keep the distance. “Not the problem. Not the asset. Me. The girl who lost her brother. The woman who lost her life. The one who’s screaming in a locked room while everyone outside pretends not to hear it.”
I felt her grief in my ribs. Like pressure building behind bone. She was so goddamn close to breaking, and I wasn’t sure which of us would shatter first.
I parted my lips to speak, but nothing came.
She looked up at me—eyes wide, wild, aching. “Carrick, show me something,” she begged. “Please. Show me I’m not just this mission.”
And fuck it. I didn’t think.
I reached for her. One hand to her jaw, slow, firm, grounding. My thumb brushed the edge of her cheekbone.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. She leaned in, just enough to let me know she wasn’t going to stop me if I pulled her all the way in. And god help me, I wanted to. I wanted to kiss her. To drag her into my chest and tell her I’d carry the weight for both of us.
But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t give her something real if I was just going to rip it away later.
And yet—I couldn’t walk away either.
She was asking for something raw, something brutal, something that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with survival. This wasn’t about lust. This wasn’t about comfort. It was about pain—controlled, contained, and offered on her terms. And I knew what it meant for her to ask. What it cost her to hand over that kind of power.
Maybe I should’ve said no. Maybe I should’ve told her to rest. To eat. To breathe. But I knew better. I’d seen this kind of grief before—the kind that settled under the skin and made everything feel like drowning. She didn’t need saving. She needed to choose her pain. To own it. To have someone meet her at the edge and not back away.
And if that someone had to be me… then I’d give her what she needed. Even if it gutted me.
So I held her face, and I made her a promise instead.
“I’ll take you.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“I’ll take you tonight,” I said, voice low, firm. “We’ll move quiet. No one has to know.”
