Knox's POV:
The bed felt alien. A betrayal. The softness of it was an insult when she was in a sterile room because of me. But her voice, soft and insistent in the dark,
"For me.", was a command I was powerless to refuse.
I left the door open. A reckless, necessary vulnerability. So she would know. So the silence between us wouldn't be a wall, but a shared space.
I didn't think I would sleep. I lay rigid, staring at the ceiling, every sense straining back toward her room. I listened for the shift of her sheets, the sigh of her breath. For an hour, I heard nothing but the hum of the air purifier down the hall.
Then, a change. A soft, almost imperceptible thud, followed by a new rhythm. Slower. Deeper. Softer than wakefulness.
She'd fallen asleep.
The realization unspooled the last taut wire in my chest. Her body, trusting the quiet he had promised, had finally given out. The profound, protective instinct that had kept me awake for days shifted focus. Now, my vigilance wasn't to stand guard against a threat; it was to protect this. Her rest.
I closed my own eyes. Not to sleep, but to listen better. To let her steady, sleeping breaths become the only rhythm in my world. The open door allowed the faint, sweet trace of her stabilized scent to drift to me, clean of fear, clean of shock. Just Bella, asleep.
And somewhere, in that deep, listening dark, with the sound of her peace as my anchor, the relentless engine of my own guilt and panic finally sputtered and stalled. For the first time since the shatter, true sleep pulled me under, not as an escape, but as a silent pact. We were both down. But we were, at last, down together.
The sleep that had taken me was thin, a fragile film over a churning black sea.
The dream wasn't a memory. It was a distortion. I was back in the bedroom, but the air was thick with the cloying, amplified scent of strawberries, turned sickly-sweet and overwhelming. Bella stood by the vanity, but she wasn't curious. She was terrified, her rabbit ears pinned flat, backing away from me as I approached.
"Stay back," she whispered, her voice echoing. "Your scent… it's choking me."
I looked down. My gloves were gone. My hands were bare, but they weren't my hands. They were dark, shadowy claws, leaking that same ozone-and-storm scent like a toxic smoke. I tried to speak, to tell her I'd fix it, but my voice came out as a deafening, bestial roar.
She screamed. The sound wasn't fear of an accident. It was pure, primal terror of the monster.
I reached for her, not to hurt, but to… I didn't know. To explain. To stop the scream. My shadow-claw touched her arm.
And she began to dissolve. Not into blood, but into a fine, sparkling dust, like shattered glass made of light. The strawberry scent vanished, replaced by the acrid smell of ozone and emptiness. I was clutching nothing. I had erased her. Consumed her. Just as she'd feared.
I bolted upright in my own bed, a choked roar dying in my throat. My heart hammered against my ribs like it wanted to escape. The sheets were tangled around me, damp with cold sweat. For a terrifying second, the line between the dream and the hallway outside was blurred. The scent of her,real, not nightmarish,felt like a phantom.
I pressed the heels of my gloved hands against my eyes, trying to scrub the image of her dissolving from my mind. The guilt was no longer just a feeling. It had shape, and sound, and a taste like ashes. It had become a living thing that hunted me in my sleep.
The phantom scent of dissolving strawberries clung to the back of my throat, a cruel mockery. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the floor cool against my bare feet. The open door to the hallway seemed to accuse me,my gesture of trust now felt like a conduit for the nightmare's poison.
I couldn't stay in the silence of my own room with that vision haunting the dark. I moved back into the hallway on silent feet, drawn to her door like a planet to its star, unable to break orbit even in disgrace.
I didn't sit. I stood, leaning my shoulder against the wall opposite her door, my arms crossed. A sentinel again, but now guarding not just her, but myself from the specter in my own head. I listened, straining for the soft, steady rhythm of her sleep, needing the proof that she was still whole, still *there*.
The nightmare had made one thing violently clear: my fear wasn't just of her rejection. It was of my own nature. The enigma wasn't just a secret to be hidden; in the dream, it was an annihilating force. I had spent a lifetime building walls to protect the world from what I was. Now, the most terrifying possibility was that those walls were there to protect *her* from a truth even I couldn't fully face.
I stood in the dark, a shadow haunted by a deeper shadow, waiting for the dawn to make the ghosts retreat. My vigil was no longer just penance. It was a desperate defense against the monster my own subconscious had shown me. The silence from her room was absolute, but it felt different from the peaceful quiet that had preceded our sleep. It felt charged, waiting. The memory of the nightmare,her dissolving into glass-dust,clawed at the edges of my mind, demanding proof it wasn't a premonition.
I couldn't bear it. I needed to know.
My voice was a low, graveled whisper, barely more than a breath of sound, but I knew it would carry.
"Bella?"
I held my own breath, every sense focused on the space beyond the door. Listening for the shift of sheets, the soft sigh of someone stirring from sleep, the quiet, living proof that she was still intact.
Just her name. A question thrown into the dark, seeking the only answer that mattered. A soft, sleepy murmur came from the other side of the door, laced with a hint of amusement that sent a shockwave of relief through me. She was awake. She was whole. And she was counting.
"You know…" her voice drifted through the wood, hushed and warm with the remnants of sleep. "…you slept for forty minutes only."
The tension that had turned my spine to steel dissolved, leaving me almost lightheaded. A faint, incredulous huff of air escaped me,not quite a laugh, but the ghost of one. She'd been aware. She'd been timing my failed attempt at rest.
"You were supposed to be asleep," I murmured back, the raw edge gone from my voice, replaced by something softer, weary.
"I was," she whispered. "Then someone started having a very loud, very dramatic nightmare. The growling is a bit hard to sleep through, even for a rabbit."
The gentle chiding, the lack of fear in her tone… it was a balm. She wasn't dissolving. She was teasing me. The monster of the dream receded, chastened by the reality of her soft, living voice.
"My apologies," I said, the words sincere. "I'll… try to have quieter nightmares."
A soft, almost silent laugh filtered through the door. "See that you do."
And just like that, the lingering horror of the dream was punctured. We weren't in a tragedy. We were in a strange, fragile, shared insomnia, negotiating peace one whispered exchange at a time. I slid down the wall to sit on the floor again, but this time, the posture wasn't one of despair. It was of a companionable, weary watch. We were both awake. But we were awake together. The doctor arrived for her morning check, her efficient steps halting abruptly at the top of the stairs. She took in the scene: me, likely looking rumpled and anxious in the doorway of my room, and Knox, seated on the floor directly opposite, his back against the wall and his head tipped back. He was dozing, but it was a vigilant sleep,his body was angled squarely toward my door, his gloved hands resting loosely on his knees, as if ready to push to his feet in an instant.
The doctor's lips pursed. She looked from his exhausted form to me, her professional mask giving way to a flicker of something far more human,a blend of exasperation, pity, and a deep, clinical understanding.
"I see the 'no contact' rule has been creatively interpreted," she said dryly, her voice low but carrying in the quiet hall.
Knox's eyes snapped open at the sound, the purple instantly sharp and alert, zeroing in on me to ensure I was alright before glancing at the doctor. He didn't move from his spot on the floor, a silent declaration that his post was non-negotiable.
The doctor simply shook her head and motioned for me to go back into my room for the examination. As I turned, I caught the faintest softening around her eyes. She saw it too,the absurd, stubborn devotion in his sentinel's slump, the way he had positioned himself not just to guard, but to be the first thing I saw if I opened my door. It wasn't by the rules. But it was, unmistakably, because of me.