Camilla pov...
"I'm—" My voice cracked, brittle as old
glass. "I'm sorry. I just—you scared me. Don't do that again."
He didn't answer. He just kept looking at me, his gaze a physical weight, and I wondered if he knew. If he could see what I really was.
"Let me see your own hand."
He reached for me, his good hand closing around my wrist. He dragged me closer, and my body collided with the solid warmth of his legs where he sat on the edge of the bed. The IV line dangled between us, a forgotten detail in the sudden, charged tension.
"Can I clean it?" He was looking at my bandaged hand, the one I'd cut on broken glass in the blind panic after the shooting.
"No. The nurse will do it later. It's fine."
"Shut up."
He said it so softly. So simply. It wasn't cruel; it was absolute. Like my protest was not just irrelevant, but a trivial noise to be dismissed.
