Page 313 of Immune

“Like they’ve just handed you a collar with a tag that has HOPE etched into it,” Fletcher finishes for me.

My throat tightens and I look back at him. His face is hard, but not because of me. At least, I don’t think it’s at me.

“Yeah,” I whisper, nodding in confirmation.

The wind drags a cold touch over my arms the next moment and Fletcher’s eyes drop to them. To the goosebumps that break out over my flesh. To the two bites now scarred into my throat. To my hands, still not clean enough no matter how much water will touch them.

His hands close once, then open. It’s clear he wants to come closer, but he doesn’t. And that level of restraint from him feels different from Kaito’s. Kaito’s restraint is a freshly sharpened blade held back from the throat. Fletcher’s is more of a shield left on the ground between us until I decide whether to pick it up.

“You’re doing it,” I say.

His eyes lift. “Doing what?”

“Standing there like you want to wrap me in bubble wrap and howl at the moon,” I explain quietly. Almost softly, something I thought I’d lost six years ago when there was nothing soft left holding on to.

His mouth almost moves. “Maybe not the moon.”

“Fletcher.”

“I want to protect you,” he says suddenly, and the honesty drops heavily between us.

“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

“I also know that wanting to protect you doesn’t just give me the right to decide what that protection looks like.”

Something under my ribs pulls tight.

He takes one slow breath. “I got that wrong before.”

I look away and the yard blurs for half a second. Not tears. Oh, God, no. Absolutely not. More like, I don’t know… Illegal moisture. Hm. Yeah. Let’s go with that.

“When?” I ask, because I’m apparently a big fan of making men emotionally bleed when they’re already picking apart their wounds.

“With you?” His voice is rough. “More than once. I saw threats and made choices around them like your voice was just another thing to slot in after the fact. I figured if I kept you alive, then that would be enough.”

I turn back to him and tilt my head slightly. “And now?”

He eyes me for a long moment, and I feel it sucker punch me in the chest. Then he says, “Now I know a cage can still keep someone breathing.”

My breath catches harshly in my lungs.

His eyes hold mine, never once looking away or even blinking. “But that don’t make it safety.”

For a second, the only sound is the tarp billowing softly in the wind and my heartbeat pounding harshly in my chest. Because there it is. The protection without control. A shield without bars.

My body reacts before my brain approves the paperwork, heat dipping low in my stomach. It’s not sudden, and it’s not sweet. It’s a slow burn through a room full of ash.

Fletcher sees it, because of course he does. His nostrils flare once right before cedar and leather thickens in the air, steady and warm. My body answers in a way that makes me both furious and relieved at the same time.

“Don’t,” I say.

He goes completely still. “Don’t what?”

My jaw clenches before I answer. “Don’t look like you’re about to apologize for noticing.”

His throat moves. “I wasn’t.”

“Liar.”