Chapter Text
It was too quiet that night.
Not the warm sort of quiet, the kind you wrap around yourself like a soft blanket. This was a fragile quiet. Brittle. Ready to shatter if I so much as breathed too loudly.
I sat on the edge of my bed, the silk of my nightgown clinging to my skin in the warm air. My feet pressed into the cold marble floor, toes curling against it, trying to ground myself in something real.
Outside the window, the city lights glittered like scattered diamonds. Beautiful. Untouchable. Somewhere far below, sirens wailed faintly. The hum of hovercrafts cut the night air. Even up here, in my little glass box, the sound reached me—reminding me there was a world outside this palace.
But inside? Inside there was nothing but stillness.
I picked up the crystal glass from the bedside table. The whiskey had long since gone warm, but I swirled it anyway, just to hear the clink of liquid against glass. The sound felt alive. It kept my thoughts from growing too loud.
And then—
Crash.
The sound of breaking glass shattered the silence like a gunshot.
I jumped, the whiskey sloshing over the rim of the glass, burning as it hit my hand.
The balcony doors slammed open. Curtains flared inward with the night breeze. And then… a shadow.
A figure stumbled through the opening, unsteady on his feet.
My breath caught.
A man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, moving like every step cost him. Moonlight caught the sharp cut of his jaw, the dark strands of hair clinging to his damp forehead. His shirt was torn open at the shoulder, and—
Blood.
So much blood.
I froze, still clutching the glass, though my fingers had gone numb.
He lifted his head. Our eyes met.
“Not a sound.”
His voice was low. Steady, but with a rough edge, like he’d been running for miles and didn’t have breath to spare.
I didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
He raised his hand, and that’s when I saw it.
A gun.
The black metal caught the faint light as he leveled it at me.
“Not one word.”
The words weren’t loud, but they landed heavy in the air between us.
I nodded before I even realized I was nodding.
“Good girl.” The corner of his mouth twitched—not a smile, but something darker. His arm trembled slightly, and I noticed his knuckles were white around the grip of the gun.
There was a pause.
His eyes flicked over the room in a quick, practiced scan. The walls. The bed. The door.
And then he swayed.
I didn’t even have time to react.
His knees buckled. The gun slipped from his grasp, clattering uselessly to the floor as his body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.
He landed hard on the marble, his shoulder hitting first with a sickening sound. Blood smeared across the pristine white floor as he dragged himself weakly forward, fingers clawing at the rug like he could hold on if he just kept moving.
Then he went still.
---
I think I stood there for a full minute before I even let myself breathe.
The gun was just a few feet from my bare toes. I could grab it. I could run.
But I didn’t.
Something in the way he had collapsed—like all the fight had drained out of him—kept me rooted in place.
It wasn’t just the blood. Or the threat.
It was the look in his eyes before he fell.
Like he was already halfway gone.