Page 103 of Twisted Steel

“Later,” I say, voice wrecked.

Her fingers tighten in my shirt.“Do you promise?”

My chest locks.“Yes.”

“Good.”She swallows.“Because I am absolutely not having sex in a slaughterhouse.”

Raven says, “Thank God.I was starting to worry about the aesthetic.”

Harper laughs, but it breaks halfway.I close my eyes for one second, because that sound saves more of me than she knows.

Savage’s voice comes from behind us, low and deliberately neutral.“County’s ready.”

Harper doesn’t move away, and neither do I.

“Good,” she says.“Because I’m going to need stitches.”

My head lifts fast.“Where?”

Her mouth curves faintly despite the blood.“There he is.”

I glare, and she smiles before she leans into me, just enough that I know I’m allowed to hold her.So I do, carefully, like she is breakable even though she has proved, again and again, that she is not.

Raven steps closer, touching Harper’s shoulder.“You did good.”

Harper laughs weakly.“I got kidnapped.”

“And stabbed a man with half a pair of trauma shears.”

“Technically, I sliced him.”

“Don’t undersell yourself.It’s unbecoming.”She gives Harper a withering look that makes my girl smile.

Savage watches Raven with something dark and quiet in his eyes.She looks back at him.“Don’t say it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking it loudly.”

His mouth tightens.“You shouldn’t have come in.”

“And yet, here we all are, enriched by my presence.”

Saint mutters, “That’s one word for it.”

For a second, in the middle of the blood and rust and old death, something almost like family breathes around us.Damaged, armed, and completely unsuitable for greeting cards.But real.

Outside, sirens begin to wail in the distance.Reaper is dragged past us, cursing through blood.He looks at Harper once.

I move before thought.A single step.

He looks away, and Harper’s fingers tighten in my shirt.“Precise, remember?”

I look down at her.Bloodied, bruised, beautiful, furious, and alive.

“I’m trying,” I say.

“I know you are.”And because she knows, because she sees every terrible thing and still stands in my arms by choice, I walk her out of the slaughterhouse and into the harsh wash of headlights.