CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
ZADE
The human mind is a fragile, easily deceived thing.
I had stepped under the scalding water of the private locker room before stepping into the hospital proper, scrubbing the soap into my skin until my flesh turned an angry, raw red.
I needed to wash away the phantom grime.
I needed to rid myself of the smell of that damp warehouse before I dared to breathe the same air as her.
Once my skin burned from the heat, I changed into something comfortable, pulling on a fresh white tee and my maroon leather jacket.
I had thrown away the button-down shirt that was stiffened by her dried blood.
I had wrapped fresh, clean white gauze around my split palm, hiding the damage I had inflicted in her name.
But as I stand in the frame of her doorway, my boots frozen against the threshold, the illusion of cleanliness shatters.
The phantom scent of rusted iron and metallic copper still clings to the back of my throat, an inescapable rot.
My hands still feel sticky against the clean fabric of my pockets.
And now, I am looking at her.
My Wildfire.
She is pale–so fucking pale she looks almost translucent against the harsh, bleached white of the hospital sheets.
The clear plastic tubing of the oxygen line rests right beneath her nose, its rhythmic, mechanical hiss the only thing competing with the agonizingly slow beep... beep... beep of the heart monitor.
And then, her eyes find mine.
The clouded, feverish blue of her irises focuses through the glare of the room.
Her lips part slightly. And she smiles.
It's a tiny, weak thing–a mere shadow of the fierce, biting smirks she usually throws at me like weapons–but it hits me with the force of a physical blow straight to the solar plexus.
"Hi..." she whispers.
The single syllable fractures the air in the room, scattering my defenses to the wind.
I completely freeze.
I can't move.
I can't breathe.
My heart slams against my ribs, an erratic, violent rhythm that feels entirely too loud in the quiet ward.
I am a killer, a ruler, a man who commands empires with a word, but right now, her faint whisper anchors me to the floor like stone.
Mio looks up from the side of the bed. Her swollen, bloodshot eyes dart from my rigid posture to Alice's face.
She reads the suffocating, toxic pull between us instantly–the silent language only the two of us speak.
Slowly, without a word, Mio squeezes Alice's hand one last time, stands up from the plastic chair, and walks toward the door.
As she passes me, she doesn't say anything, but her hand brushes against the sleeve of my maroon leather jacket–a silent, heavy acknowledgment of the borders we crossed today.
The heavy wood door clicks shut behind her. The silence returns, thicker now, weighted down by the massive gravity of everything we haven't said.
I force my boots to move. Every step toward her bed feels like walking through deep, treacherous mud.
I slide into the plastic chair Mio just vacated, the material groaning under my weight.
I don't touch her immediately. I can't bring myself to do it.
I am too large, too dark, too ruinous for the fragile, quiet ecosystem of this hospital bed.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Hamilton,"
she murmurs, using my last name with a faint, mocking edge that cuts through the sterile air. It's a beautiful sound.
It lets me know her spirit hasn't been broken, even if her body is currently stitched together by a surgeon's thread.
"You are the ghost," I rasp out, my voice sounding incredibly deep, rough, and unpolished in the quiet room.
"You died in my arms for three minutes, Alice. Don't expect me to look at you and see anything else."
Her smile fades slightly at the raw honesty in my voice, her gaze dropping down to my hands resting on my knees.
Even under the fresh, white gauze, the broad, jagged shape of my knuckles is
unmistakable.
She reaches out–her arm moving with a stiff, guarded hesitation that tells me her left side is still screaming in pure agony–and lets her cold fingers brush against my wraps.
The contrast is a physical ache in my chest. Her skin is burning with the residual heat of the fever, yet her fingertips are cold, trembling against the rough texture of my bandages.
"What happened?" she asks softly, her striking blue eyes boring into mine, searching for the truth beneath the heavy mask I wear.
She runs her thumb over the thick wrapping.
"How did you get this?" she asks, caressing my bandaged palm with a tenderness that makes my throat tighten.
"Just a small broken glass," I reply, my voice softening into something unrecognizable, trying to keep the horror of the warehouse far away from this room.
Alice stares at me, her chest rising and falling beneath the thin paper hospital gown. She reads right through me, a faint, exhausted glint returning to her eyes.
"You're really... an idiot," she says softly.
"That... it's true," I say, a breathless huff escaping my lungs.
My thumb automatically reaches out to stroke the warm back of her hand, my movements hyper-cautious, as if she might shatter into crystal glitter the way she did in the worst of her nightmares.
Her gaze drifts to the ceiling, the memories of her captivity clouding her mind.
"He is a psycho... completely delusional," she says, her voice growing smaller as her eyelids begin to flicker again under the weight of the hospital drugs.
"You won't have to worry about him anymore," I state flatly.
I mean the words to be comforting.
I mean them as an absolute declaration of security, a bloody offering laid at her altar to prove she is safe under my shadow forever.
But as the words leave my mouth, a strange, subtle shift ripples through her expression.
Her blue eyes widen just a fraction.
Beneath her skin, her pulse spikes.
On the wall behind me, the heart monitor's rhythm begins to accelerate, giving away the sudden panic blooming in her chest.
Beep-beep... beep-beep... beep-beep.
The mechanical sound cuts through the air like an alarm.
I freeze, my thumb stopping dead against her knuckles.
I see the exact moment the realization sinks into her mind–the faint, instinctive shadow of fear crossing her face.
She isn't afraid that I will hurt her.
She's afraid of the sheer extremity of what I am capable of doing to keep her.
She's suffocating under the weight of an obsession so heavy, so lethal, it leaves no room for light.
It's the first seed.
I can see it planting itself deep in the fertile soil of her mind–the terrifying, quiet thought that I am too much.
Too dark. Too consuming for a girl who just wants to live a normal life.
"Zade..." she breathes, her voice trembling slightly, though she doesn't pull her hand away from mine.
"Easy, Wildfire," I murmur, my heart fracturing at the sight of her unease.
I immediately pull back the darkness, deliberately softening the sharp line of my jaw to calm her down.
"You're working yourself up over nothing. Forget about the dark. Look at me."
She blinks, swallowing hard against the dryness in her throat, her gaze following my movements until the panic subsides.
"Mio told me... about Ellie," she whispers, her voice eager to latch onto anything that doesn't smell like blood and vengeance.
"She said... twins?"
A faint, genuine smile touches my lips, the crushing tension in my shoulders releasing just an inch as the heart monitor slowly returns to its steady, baseline rhythm.
"Yeah. Twins. That absolute idiot Nate is out in the hallway right now trying to figure out how to tell their parents and buy two of everything. I think his brain completely short-circuited the second he heard the second heartbeat on the monitor."
A soft, breathless laugh escapes her, her blue eyes crinkling beautifully at the edges.
"He's going to be a good dad."
"He's going to be a pathetic, soft dad," I correct her dryly, though there is no real heat in the words.
"He'll let them draw on his face with markers before they're even old enough to walk. But yeah. He'll be good."
"won't you? If someday you become one?" she asks.
It's just a tiny whisper, a fragile question floating in the space between us, but it hits me like a lightning bolt.
My chest constricts, a sudden, heavy sorrow flooding my veins.
I look at her, then down at my bandaged hands....hands that are built for breaking, hands that have spent the night tearing a man apart.
"That, I'll not. I don't deserve that..." I murmur back, my voice hollowed out.
A monster like me doesn't get to bring innocence into the world.
I don't deserve the purity of a child, not with the amount of blood on my soul.
Alice watches me, her expression melting into something deeply emotional, a quiet, heartbreaking reverence that makes my throat tighten until it hurts.
"Thank you..." she says softly.
"For what?" I ask, my thumb tracing the line of her wrist.
"For saving them. For saving me," she says, her blue eyes shining with an overwhelming sincerity.
"Don't," I interrupt, my grip tightening on her hand, my voice leaving absolutely no room for argument.
"Don't do that. You are the one who took that nail, Alice. You are the one who bled for them. I didn't save anyone–I just came to clean up the mess left behind by a coward. You're the one who kept them alive."
She doesn't argue, her eyelids growing visibly heavy as the residual sedatives in her system begin to pull her backward into the fog.
The brief burst of adrenaline from waking up is completely spent, leaving her fragile frame utterly exhausted.
Her fingers slowly slacken within mine, her breathing slowing into a long, deep, and rhythmic pattern.
"Don't go..." she mumbles against the pillow, her voice drifting, her eyes already closed...
It's the same phrase she whispered when she was terrified of the dark, but this time, it's a habit.
A demand. An unspoken anchor.
"I'm right here," I whisper back into the dimming light of the room, leaning my frame forward until my chin rests near her shoulder, guarding her sleep.
I watch her slip under, her face turning peaceful as the medication takes full hold of her senses.
I sit there in the heavy quiet, the steady beep of the machine the only anchor left in the world, and I stare at the pale skin of her wrist where her pulse beats soft and steady.
I had told myself I would bleed the world dry to keep her.
But looking at her now, remembering the faint flash of terror in her blue eyes when I spoke of Marcus, a cold, unyielding truth settles deep into my chest.
I am a monster.
I have always been a monster.
And no matter how clean the clothes are, or how softly I hold her hand, the dark will always follow me into her room.
The Devil will always be waiting right beneath the skin, ready to tear the world apart the second she bleeds..
And as I press a final, silent kiss against her sleeping knuckles, I can only pray that my worship doesn't burn her to ash before the game is finally over.