Page 130 of Blades Out
The world dropped out from under me.
"Over the fire alarm."
I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Every part of me went rigid—stone and steel and violence barely contained beneath skin that felt too tight.
Because I remembered that night. Remembered the screaming. The crashes. The sound of furniture breaking. The smoke alarm shrieking through thin walls. Remembered thinking it was just another domestic dispute in a building full of them. Remembered almost not calling it in because I'd learned early that getting involved only made things worse. Remembered the moment I realized the screaming had stopped.
And knowing—somehow knowing—that silence was worse.
Her voice cracked. "You saved me."
Something in my chest shattered.
All the years I'd spent trying to forget that night. Trying to convince myself I hadn't done enough, hadn't acted fast enough, hadn't stayed to make sure she was okay. Trying to bury the guilt under layers of professional distance and carefully maintained isolation.
And she was telling me I'd saved her.
I pulled her closer. Buried my face in her hair. Held her like she was the only thing keeping me anchored to earth.
Because she was.
My fists clenched against her back. Knuckles white. Muscles coiling so tight they burned.
I remembered the screams.
Every single one.
They'd bled through apartment walls for months before that night—muffled thuds, raised voices, the specific pitch of terror that made my skin crawl. I'd pound on the wall with my fist. Hard enough to bruise. Hard enough to make a point. The noise would stop for a few hours. Then start again.
I'd called it in anonymously. Three times. Four. Lost count after a while. Wellness checks that went nowhere because her mother answered the door with a smile and assured the officers everything was fine. Because her father knew how to play the game. Because the system protected men like him better than it protected girls like her.
I'd seen her bruised once. Small thing. Maybe eight years old. Sitting on the front steps with a purple shadow blooming across her cheekbone and a split lip she kept touching with careful fingers.
I'd asked if she was okay. She'd looked up at me with those same eyes—too old for a child's face—and said she fell.
I'd known she was lying. And I'd walked away, anyway.
My breath shook against her hair. Rage climbing up my throat until I couldn't swallow around it.
I had saved her.
That night when the smoke alarm wouldn't stop and the screaming cut off too suddenly—when every instinct I possessed screamed that silence meant death—I'd kicked in the door. Found her cowering in a corner while her father advanced with hands already raised. Found broken glass and overturned furniture and a child who'd learned to make herself small.
I'd saved her. And it wasn't enough. Nothing I'd done would ever be enough.
I should have kicked down the door months earlier. Should have refused to leave until she was safe. Should have torn her father apart with my bare hands instead of restraining him for the police. Should have made sure she never had to see him again. Should have protected her better.
The fury burned through my chest—at myself, at him, at a world designed to fail the vulnerable. At every system that had looked the other way. At every neighbor who'd heard and done nothing. At my own cowardice for not acting sooner.
But underneath the rage—quieter, possessive, absolute—pride settled like stone.
I'd protected her then. And I would never stop protecting her now.
Never again would she face him alone. Never again would she pack a bag in ten minutes and run.
I'd burn the world down first.
She looked up at me with tear-wet eyes. Everything stopped. The rage. The guilt. The years of carefully maintained distance. All of it burned away under that gaze—devastated and trusting and utterly unguarded.
