Page 40 of Guardian Falling
And he keeps watching me as if he can still see the truth I refuse to hand him.
Rogue crosses to the bed and sits beside me, close enough that his warmth reaches me immediately, that radiating, steady warmth that’s uniquely him, that shouldn’t exist in someone with what I increasingly suspect are not entirely human characteristics, and says nothing for a moment. He doesn’t try to fill the space with reassurances I won’t believe yet, and he doesn’t offer platitudes wrapped in good intentions. He simply occupies the chair beside my reality and lets it exist without rushing it toward something easier.
“You’re not a monster.” His voice has dropped out of its controlled register into something lower and more direct, something that carries the quality of a thing said because it is true and not because it’s what the moment requires. “Monsters don’t grieve what they’ve done. Monsters don’t carry the weight of it like you’re carrying it right now. They don’t cry about it in cabins in the mountains and lose their composure in front of strangers.” His mouth moves like he’s considering a smileand decides against it. “You’re not a monster, Charlotte. You’re new, overwhelmed, and you’re fighting something you don’t understand yet with tools you haven’t been given.” He pauses. “And I’m going to help you.”
I drag my hands down my face, thoroughly ruining whatever remained of my dignity, and look sideways at him through wet lashes. “Yeah, about that,” I say, my voice still rough at the edges but finding its footing again, the wit creeping back in like a cat returning after being frightened off, cautious, and watching for signs the coast is clear. “Exactlywhyare you helping me? You don’t know me. You’re… what even are you, some kind of supernatural bouncer? Does the job description come with a cape? A tragic backstory? Extraordinary commitment to the wellness of strangers you just met?”
His expression does something complicated and still across all its components. He doesn’t answer immediately, which is interesting on its own terms. A man with an uncomplicated answer gives it immediately.
“Because you need help,” he says finally, which is technically a complete sentence and also somehow not an answer at all.
“Wow…” I say, “… incredibly illuminating. Truly. I’ll be sitting with the depth of that for days.” I scrub my eyes with the back of my palms, pulling myself upright, dragging my composure back into place. “I don’t believe you,” I tell him, not unkindly. “But I also don’t have a lot of alternative options right now, so I’m going to shelve my extensive skepticism and revisit it when I’m not running on empty and existential dread.”
There’s no attempt to convince me to trust him. He only nods once, accepting the moment for what it is, then crosses to the sealed container near the door and brings it back to the bed, setting it beside me with careful, deliberate hands.
“Drink this,” he says.
I look at the container. The smell reaches me before I open it, something dark, animal, and absolutely nothing like what my body is currently screaming for. My face does something involuntary at the prospect.
“Cow’s blood,” he tells me, which does not improve matters. “Animal blood doesn’t satisfy the way…” His brow shifts. “It doesn’t satisfy completely. But it keeps the hunger below the level where it can override your judgment. Keeps you functional. It keeps you in control.”
“It smells like something that belongs in a slaughterhouse,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to drink it?”
“I want you to keep your control.”
I stare at the container, as if someone has asked me to eat something they found behind a vending machine. Rogue waits, clearly having decided this battle isn’t worth his time today, which is an admirable strategic choice. After a moment, he steps back toward the door.
“I’ll be in the next room,” he says. “You don’t have to drink it in front of me.” He pauses at the doorway. “One more thing. Don’t open the curtains. Not today. Not tomorrow. You’ll burn, slowly, not dramatically, but enough to make you wish you hadn’t. Trust me on that one.”
“Oh, how thoughtful,” I call after him. “Private terrible cow-blood-drinking time and a sunlight warning. This is exactly the solo experience I was hoping for.”
Rogue shakes his head, and I see the very edge of something that might generously be called a smile happening in his jaw, barely there, gone before it becomes anything official.
Then the door closes behind him, and I’m alone with the container, the fire, the silence and the hunger.
I donotdrink it.
I sit with it for a while instead, on principle, because if I can’t control anything else right now, I can at least control whether I give in immediately, especially when it’s coming from less than twenty-four hours of knowing him, even if he’s technically right.
This is called asserting my autonomy.
It’s very important.
Psychologically speaking, it’s probably the healthiest response available to me right now.
This is what I tell myself for approximately three hours.
Then the hunger shifts.
It doesn’t escalate gradually, the way something manageable becomes difficult, then worse. It goes from background screaming to primary occupation in the space of a single breath, constricting around my throat like a hand closing, like something internal and relentless has decided that patience is finished, that negotiation is off the table, and that my body is overriding the committee vote.
I have the container open before I’ve consciously decided to open it, and the smell hits me like a wall, thick, deeply offensive to biology itself. My whole face rejects it with the enthusiasm of every taste receptor I apparently still possess conspiring against me. I drink anyway, because the alternative is sitting in this room while my own biology eats me alive from the inside, and whatever else Charlotte Harris is, she is not someone who loses to her own nervous system without a fight she can at least document the failure of.
It tastes exactly as terrible as advertised.
