Page 3 of Let it Sizzle
My father. The door. The sound of it breaking. Samira’s voice shaking in the dark. Levi’s voice calling out. The fight.
Panic tears through my chest.
“Samira,” I gasp, trying to push off the blanket, my voice catching on her name. “Where’s Samira?”
“She’s okay.”
Levi’s voice comes from the other side of the room. I look up and see him standing in the doorway, his shirt changed, a faint red mark on his cheek. His hair is damp, like he just washed off the night. There’s something in his expression that steadies the panic in my lungs—a quiet certainty that somehow makes everything slow down.
“She’s asleep in my room,” he adds, walking over. “She had hot chocolate. She didn’t want to leave your side, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open.”
Relief floods me so fast it makes my eyes sting. I nod, but it takes effort. My body feels like it’s made of sandbags and bruises. He kneels beside the couch, his movements gentle as he adjusts the blanket and presses a cold cloth to my temple. I didn’t even realize I was sweating.
“Your shoulder’s bruised,” he murmurs. “And your lip was bleeding. I cleaned it up a bit.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s true. I’m sorry for the screaming. For needing help. For collapsing in front of him like some useless damsel from the books I used to hide under my pillow.
“Don’t be.”
He’s so close I can smell the soap on his skin, clean and unfamiliar, and for a moment, my eyes linger on the cut at his lip and the curve of his jaw. I shouldn’t notice. But I do.
There’s no pity in his eyes. No judgment. Just something quiet and solid. Like he’s not scared of the pieces I’m made of.
He stays there, one hand steadying the cloth, the other holding mine again. I want to pull away—embarrassment burns under my skin—but I don’t. I don’t think I can.
“You’re safe now,” he says, and this time, I almost believe him.
I sink back against the cushions, eyes fluttering closed, not because I’m weak but because—for once—I don’t have to keep them open.
And that’s when I realize: this is the first time I’ve ever felt protected by someone who wasn’t Byron.
Levi Mercer didn’t just get us out of that house. He gave me someplace soft to land.
I watch him as he wrings out the cloth and folds it again, pressing it gently to the corner of my mouth where the skin still stings. He hasn’t said much since I woke up. Maybe he doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe he knows I can’t handle words that sound too much like pity.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I murmur, my voice hoarse from crying. “Come in after us. Fight him.”
Levi looks up from the cloth in his hands, his jaw ticking.
“I promised Byron I’d take care of you,” he says quietly. “He made me swear it.”
I blink at him. The idea that my brother—who always did everything himself—would ask someone else to look after me... it feels foreign. Almost impossible. But Levi isn’t done.
“When I heard you scream, I didn’t think. I just ran.”
He says it like it was simple. Like barging into someone else’s nightmare was the obvious thing to do. There’s no pride in his voice. No need for thanks. Just a quiet kind of certainty, like this was always going to be the way the night ended.
“I didn’t know what he’d do to you,” Levi adds, softer now. “But I knew I wasn’t going to stand there and find out.”
My throat tightens. I look away, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to cry again. Not from pain. Not from fear. From the strange, aching weight of being protected—for once, by someone who wasn’t my brother.
“He’s going to be mad,” I whisper.
“He’s not coming near you tonight.”
There’s so much finality in his voice, it stills the panic pressing against my ribs. I feel it settle, just a little. Like maybe, just maybe, the worst part is over.
“You sure, she’s okay?”
