Page 224 of Sage Haven
She needed to learn how to tie better knots.
I shoved open the door, my pulse a war drum in my ears, and found her at the foot of the stairs. Curled in on herself, arms wrapped tight around her legs like she was holding herself together with sheer force of will. She looked so small. So fucking breakable. Like a gust of wind could shatter her.
I sank down beside her, careful, slow, reaching for her hand. Her fingers were cold.
Trembling. I lifted them to my lips, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss against her knuckles, feeling the way her breath hitched.
“Reich… I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her voice was wrecked. Fragile.
“Sage…” I exhaled hard, dragging a hand through my hair, struggling to keep myself steady. “I meant it when I said you were a wildflower. You’re this dainty beautiful thing reaching towards the light after having been so long in darkness… but the problem is, I don’t have any light left to give.”
I closed my eyes for a beat, forcing the next words out. “I only carry shadows. And if you stay, you’ll wither beneath them, because I can’t give you what it is you need.”
She lifted her head slowly, and her eyes—God, her fucking eyes— they were a wildfire.
Fierce. Bright. Unyielding.
“Reich,” she breathed, “without you, I wouldn’t be living. I’d be decaying. Just like I was when you first met me. So, you’re wrong. You give me exactly what I need because what I’ve needed is you.”
Her grip on my wrist tightened. Like a vice. Like salvation.
She continued when I couldn’t speak, “So, if I choose you, I’m choosing my own happiness. To feel alive.”
My chest tightened, something raw and ragged pulling along the inside of my ribs.
Her words wrapped around me like chains.
Constricting. Suffocating.
And yet— freeing me all at once.
“What makes you happy, Reich?” she asked, her voice almost too soft to hear.
“You.” The word came without hesitation.
Withoutfear.
Her lips parted on a sharp breath. Her eyes flickered with something like hope. “Then why won’t you choose me?”
Her question hit me like a blade to the gut.
I clenched my jaw, forcing myself to stay steady. “It’s not that simple, Sage.”
“Then what is it?”
I hesitated. Because once I told her, there would be no turning back.
“I work for some very bad people, Sage. People I committed myself to a long time ago before I even knew you existed.” I swallowed hard. “These people. They go by the ENA.”
Silence. A long, heavy beat.
Then she straightened. Fire in her eyes. “Then leave them.”
I barked a hollow laugh. “You think I haven’t tried?”
“Then try harder.” Her grip on my wrist was bruising now. “There must be a way. Something even you haven’t thought of.”
I stared at her.
