Chapter 2

The silence after the candle went out felt louder than the crash that brought him here. I stood frozen in the darkness, still watching him, though I could barely make out the shape of his body. The faint street lights pushed thin fingers through the window blinds, tracing the hard line of his shoulders, the glint of metal still strapped across his back. He hadn’t moved since he last spoke, but I could feel him—more than see him. It was as if a storm lived in him. I could feel it even in the quiet. It pulsed in the floor beneath my feet, beat in the air between us. My skin buzzed, my blood humming, and I tried to tell myself it was adrenaline, that my brain was creating sensations to match the impossibility of the moment—but it was more than that.

He took a slow and heavy step forward. My instincts screamed at me to run, and I moved without thinking into the hallway, trying to put distance between us. The wooden floor groaned beneath my feet. I made it halfway to the bathroom before I heard his footsteps following me. Fast. Shit he was moving fast with a sudden rush of movement, and a whoosh of air. Then he was behind me—close, too close—and I barely had time to turn around before my back hit the wall. The impact wasn’t violent, but it was hard enough to knock the wind out of me. His hand shot out, bracing near my head, not quite touching me, but caging me in with the sheer presence of his body.

My pulse screamed in my ears. The wall was cool against my spine. He was warm, hot, even, and my skin tingled where his body nearly brushed mine. His other hand still gripped the sword, but he didn’t raise it, because he didn’t have to. The tension between us felt like a drawn blade already.

“Let me go,” I breathed, though my voice shook more than I wanted it to.

He didn’t move. His breath came shallow and sharp, and in the faint light I saw his face—dirt-smudged and blood-slick, but somehow still striking. There was something brutal about the way he looked at me, like he was at war with himself, and I was the possible enemy.

“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” he said, voice low and hoarse.

“I didn’t—” My voice cracked. I swallowed hard. “I didn’t do anything.”

He tilted his head, and I caught the flicker of something almost human behind the storm in his eyes. Confusion and conflict. A hint of pain. He looked lost and angry that he was lost. The sword lowered just a little. “I don’t know what this is,” he muttered, “but I can feel it. You feel it too.”

He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t just the heat between us or the electricity crawling under my skin like static after a lightning strike. It was deeper. We were two magnets caught in the same field, constantly resisting and constantly pulled back to each other, and I hated it.

“You think pinning me to a wall will help you figure it out?” I snapped, pushing against his chest with one hand. It was like shoving a statue, solid, unmoving. He didn’t move an inch. He looked down at my hand like it was some kind of strange, gentle threat.

“I thought you were going to run,” he said.

“Can you blame me?” I said, glaring up at him.

“No.” The admission surprised me. It wasn’t an apology, but it wasn’t a threat either. He stepped back, and air filled my lungs again. I pressed a palm to my chest, willing my heart to slow. It didn’t.

He sheathed the sword swiftly, the metal sliding home with a soft scrape. Then he looked around, taking in the cracked ceiling, the chipped paint, and the flickering hallway lights that had started to buzz again above us. “This is your home?” he asked, not mocking, just curious.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s not much, but it’s mine.”

He didn't say anything, just nodded once, and for a second, he didn’t seem like a monster from another time. He was just a man who didn’t know where he was or why.

“I don’t know what I did to pull you here,” I said after a long pause. “I don’t even know if I believe this is real.”

“It’s real,” he said. “And whatever brought me here, it’s not finished with us yet.”

A chill spread through me. I didn’t want to ask what that meant. I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer. Something inside me still pulsed. It was Quiet now, but still insistent like a thread pulling tight.  I was connected to him by something more profound than logic could explain.

He turned toward the couch, his body stiff with exhaustion. He didn’t ask permission, just sat with a grunt, head resting against the armrest. In the faint light, his armor looked heavier, duller. The blood had dried along his jaw.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, closing his eyes.

I didn’t answer. Not right away. But something about the quiet tugged at me. My voice felt too small in my throat. “…What’s your name?” I asked.

His eyes opened again, just barely. A pause. Then, “Kael.”

It suited him. Sharp edges. Clipped vowels. A name that didn’t waste time. I hesitated, then muttered, “Ava.” His gaze held mine for one moment longer than it should have, like he was committing it to memory. Then he nodded once and closed his eyes again.