KENJI
Her body is warm against mine.
It's the first thing my mind registers, a solid, real fact in the dark. The scent of her clean skin, the soft cotton of my t-shirt she's drowning in, the delicate curve of her spine pressed against my chest.
I hold her, my arm a band of steel around her waist, and I feel the faint, steady rhythm of her breathing.
And then it hits me, a thunderclap inside my skull.
She fucking spoke.
Three words. A raw, quiet scratch of sound in the dead silence of this room. "Where were you?"
Not a scream. Not a plea. A question. The first crack in the ice that has frozen her for two weeks. The first sign that the girl I pulled from that warehouse hell is still in there, fighting her way back to the surface.
My arm tightens around her almost reflexively. I want to crush her to me. I want to shake her and demand she say more. I want to hear my name on her lips again, even if it's spat at me in hatred.
I want my Nicole back.
