It had been a week since Malakai came home covered in blood.
A whole week.
Long enough for the stain of that night to disappear from the floors, long enough for the house to return to its usual cold quiet, long enough for anyone else to pretend nothing had happened.
But not long enough for me to forget.
He was healing.
I could see it now in the way he moved through the house—steady, controlled, no trace of the limp that had slowed him down days ago. He had even gone back to work, leaving in the morning and returning late like getting shot was nothing more than an inconvenience in his schedule. Sometimes I wondered if that man knew how to rest at all. It was like work was stitched into his bones, like stopping would kill him faster than a bullet ever could.
Still, I couldn't blame him.
I was sitting in biology class, chin propped in my palm, half-listening to the teacher and half-counting down the minutes until the day would finally end. The topic should have bored me, but it didn't. We were talking about trauma response—how the body reacted under stress, how blood vessels narrowed to reduce bleeding, how platelets rushed to damaged tissue, how adrenaline sharpened the senses before the pain fully set in.
I found myself staring too hard at the diagram on the board.
The human body was strange. Brutal. Brilliant.
A machine made of skin and nerve and blood, built to survive even when survival felt impossible.
The teacher kept talking about clotting, tissue repair, shock, internal damage, but all I could think about was that night. Malakai sitting there, jaw locked, blood soaking through fabric. My trembling fingers. The metallic smell. The way the body could keep going even when it had every reason not to.
Maybe that was why it fascinated me.
Maybe I just liked knowing that beneath all the flesh and bone, there were systems inside us fighting to keep us alive whether we wanted them to or not.
The bell hadn't rung yet, but my mind was already far from class.
And if I was being honest, I had been distracted all week.
Not just because of Malakai.
Because of Alyssa.
I had been avoiding her like a plague ever since I came back to school, but it hadn't changed anything. If anything, it only made her worse. She had made it her personal mission to poison every room I stepped into. At lunch. In the hallways. In whispers that were never quiet enough. She kept spreading rumors about me—ugly, filthy lies about sleeping with an older man, sneaking around with men old enough to be my father, working as a maid, stealing, doing whatever she could invent just to make me smaller in other people's eyes.
Honestly, I didn't care.
Or at least I kept telling myself I didn't.
I hadn't come to school because of them. I came to finish. To survive the term. To write my exams. To get into college and leave all of this behind.
If life ever gave me that chance.
The bell finally rang, and the room burst into motion. Chairs scraped back. Books snapped shut. Conversations rose all at once, loud and restless. I packed my things and headed out, already thinking about the free period before the final bell. I usually spent it on the bleachers. It was the only place where nobody expected anything from me.
I stopped by my locker first.
I slipped my books inside, shut the metal door, and turned around.
Tiffany and Rachel were standing there.
Two of Alyssa's loyal shadows.
Rachel was chewing gum with that lazy, irritating look on her face, like she was already bored by whatever cruelty they had planned. Tiffany just stared at me, arms folded, chin lifted.
I tightened my hold on my bag.
"Excuse me," I said, trying to step around them.
Neither moved.
"Where do you think you're going?" Tiffany asked.
"To my next class."
Her mouth curled. "You've really started forgetting your place around here."
I felt something hot and tired flare up inside me, but I swallowed it back down. "I don't want any trouble. I'm just trying to leave."
Rachel blew a bubble and popped it. Tiffany leaned closer.
"You talk too much for someone like you."
I stared at her. "Please don't speak to me like that."
That only seemed to amuse them.
By then, people had started slowing down in the hallway. A few students lingered nearby, pretending not to stare while staring anyway. A commotion in school was better than any class. Better when it wasn't happening to them.
Tiffany smiled thinly. "Did anyone say you could go?"
I exhaled, already exhausted, and tried to push past them.
And then someone grabbed my hair.
Hard.
Pain tore through my scalp so suddenly my breath caught in my throat. My head jerked backward, my footing slipped, and I hit the floor before I could even think to stop myself.
The hallway spun.
Then a shadow fell over me.
I looked up.
Alyssa.
She stood above me like she had been waiting for that exact moment all day. Immaculate as always. There was something almost elegant about the hatred on her face, something polished and practiced.
Before I could speak, she bent down and slapped me.
The crack echoed down the hall.
For a second I just stared at her, stunned, my cheek burning so hot it felt split open.
"You've forgotten your place, brat," she said.
My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Alyssa... what did I ever do to you?"
She laughed softly, like I had asked the stupidest question in the world.
"This isn't about what you did." Her eyes hardened. "It's about who you are."
Then she slapped me again.
Harder.
My head snapped to the side. My ears rang. I tasted blood where my teeth had caught the inside of my cheek.
"You ruin everything just by existing," she hissed. "You walk around acting innocent like you don't know exactly what you are."
I tried to push myself up, but she kicked my leg, and pain shot up so sharply that I dropped back down with a gasp.
Somewhere around us, a few students muttered. None of them moved.
None of them helped.
I could feel all their eyes on me. Some pitying. Some entertained. Some just hungry for spectacle. That was the worst part—not the slap, not the kick, not even the humiliation. It was the silence. The way people could stand there and watch someone be broken open and do absolutely nothing.
Alyssa looked down at me with open disgust.
Then she spat on me.
Warm and degrading.
My body went still.
"Come on," she said to the others, straightening. "We're done here."
And just like that, she turned and walked away with Tiffany and Rachel trailing after her. The small crowd dissolved soon after, students drifting off in twos and threes, carrying the scene away with them in whispers.
I stayed on the floor for a while.
My cheek throbbed. My leg ached where she had kicked it. My scalp still stung from where she had yanked my hair. I wiped my face slowly with the back of my hand, then forced myself up before my pride could die there with the rest of me.
I didn't go to class.
I went to the bleachers instead.
The court below was alive with movement, boys running back and forth, sneakers screeching, a basketball pounding against polished ground in a steady rhythm. Laughter rose and fell around me, careless and bright, like the world had not just tilted under my feet.
I sat there alone, one hand pressed against my face, and stared without really seeing.
Why was it always like this?
Why did everything in my life feel sharpened at the edges?
Why did every place I went eventually become unbearable?
My thoughts kept circling the same darkness until, without meaning to, I thought of Malahai.
Not his face first.
His voice.
Low. Controlled. Dangerous in a way that never needed to announce itself.
I thought of the way he had looked that night with blood on his shirt and fury tucked beneath his skin. I thought of how some people carried violence noisily, and some carried it so quietly it became part of the air around them.
For some reason, that thought should have unsettled me more than it did.
The final bell rang before I realized how much time had passed.
School was over.
I picked up my bag and walked out through the gates, down the block, and toward the place where Daniel usually waited a few houses away from the school.
Daniel was leaning against the car when he saw me coming. He opened the back door for me without a word.
"Good afternoon, Kiera."
"Good afternoon, Daniel."
His voice was gentle. Mine was flat.
"How was school?"
"School was... school."
He gave a quiet hum, then got into the driver's seat. We had barely started moving before I caught his eyes flicking to me in the rearview mirror. Not directly. Just enough.
Enough to see the shape of a palm still marked against my cheek.
Enough to know.
"You're sure everything is alright?" he asked carefully.
I turned my face toward the window. "I'm fine."
There was a pause.
He didn't push.
The car rolled through familiar streets, but a few minutes later I noticed he had passed the turn we usually took to pick up Bridget.
I leaned forward slightly. "You missed the road."
Daniel's hands stayed steady on the wheel. "She called earlier. Said she'd be back later with friends."
I settled back again. "Oh. Okay."
The rest of the drive was quiet.
By the time we got home, the house stood the way it always did—large, still, and faintly unwelcoming. I got out, climbed the stairs with more effort than I wanted to admit, and made my way to my room. My face still burned. My leg pulsed with a dull ache. Every step reminded me of the hallway.
I shut the door behind me and lay down on the bed without changing.
For a few minutes, I just stared at the ceiling and tried not to feel anything.
Then there was a knock.
I frowned.
The maids usually called my name from outside before opening the door, but this knock came without a voice attached to it.
I pushed myself up. "Come in."
The door opened.
Malakai stepped inside.
I straightened immediately.
He wore a dark T-shirt and loose shorts, simple clothes that should have made him seem ordinary, but didn't. Nothing about him was ordinary. He filled the doorway first, then the room itself—broad shoulders, steady gaze, quiet authority. He wasn't limping anymore. Not even a little. The injury was healing, but it hadn't softened him. If anything, he looked more dangerous now that there was no visible weakness left.
And yet, over the past week, he had been... different with me.
Not warm, exactly. Malachi did not strike me as a man built for warmth. But less distant. He lingered now sometimes during breakfast. Asked how school was. If I needed anything. Once or twice he had called me into his room for no reason I fully understood, speaking little, watching more. It felt like the closest thing to gentleness a man like him could offer.
"Hi," I said quietly.
His gaze settled on me. "Kiera."
Then I noticed the small bag in his hand.
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed like it was the most natural thing in the world. "How was school?"
"Fine."
It came too quickly.
His eyes stayed on me for a second longer than I liked, but he said nothing. Instead, he handed me the bag.
"What's this?"
"Open it."
Despite myself, I did.
There were two boxes inside. I picked the smaller one first.
When I lifted the lid, I froze.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
It was delicate and expensive-looking, made with fine links and tiny charms shaped like roses and leaves, feminine without being overly ornate. But at the center of it all was something that didn't belong among flowers.
A bullet.
Not whole anymore. Altered. Refined. Set into the design like it had always meant to be there.
I looked up at him slowly.
His expression gave almost nothing away. "The one you removed."
For a moment I just stared.
He had found it.
Kept it.
Turned it into this.
My fingers brushed over the bracelet carefully, almost afraid to touch it properly. It was beautiful in a way I didn't know how to explain—beautiful and unsettling, like someone had taken violence and dressed it up as jewelry.
"I thought," he said, voice flat as ever, "it would serve better this way . On your wrist."
That was probably the closest thing to sentiment I would ever get from him.
"It's beautiful," I whispered.
He gave a single nod. "Give me ur hand . Let me help you put it on."
I did.
His fingers were cool and precise as he fastened the bracelet around my wrist. It fit perfectly, settling against my skin as though it had been made with me already in mind.
I looked at it, then back at him, and a small, real smile slipped out before I could stop it. "Thank you."
He glanced at the second box. "Open the other one."
I did.
It was a phone.
Brand new. Sleek. Expensive. The kind of phone I would never have bought for myself even in another life. Beneath it was a midnight-blue case that matched the room almost exactly.
For a second, I could only stare.
Malachi leaned back slightly, watching my face instead of the phone. "I know it's not easy being in this house without a way to reach anyone."
His jaw shifted. "And you no longer have one."
The quiet way he said it made the memory come back immediately—the last phone, the anger, the moment I had thrown it and nearly hit him.
I looked up at him. "About that... I'm sorry."
"That was weeks ago," he said. "Forget it. The phone has already been set up. I and Bridget's number are already in.
I looked back down at the phone, my chest strangely light for the first time all day. I ran my thumb across the edge of the case, over the clean lines, over the proof that someone had thought of me long enough to choose something I would like.
When I looked up again, Malakai's face had changed.
The softness—if it had ever truly been there—was gone.
His eyes had fixed on my cheek.
Before I could think, he reached out, touched my chin, and turned my face toward the light.
My breath caught.
His fingers were careful. His expression was not.
The room seemed to cool by several degrees as his gaze settled on the angry mark still bright against my skin.
When he spoke, his voice was low and lethal.
"Who did this?"
I tried to pull back a little. "It's nothing."
His grip didn't tighten, but it didn't let me go either.
"Kiera."
"You don't need to worry about it," I said quickly. "It's not important."
That was the wrong answer.
Something in his face hardened into that same coldness I remembered from the first night I met him—that terrible, restrained kind of danger that didn't need raised volume to terrify.
"I told you before," he said softly, "I do not appreciate lies."
A chill slid down my spine.
His eyes stayed on mine. "So I'll ask you once more. Who did this?"
I swallowed.
There was no use fighting him when he looked like that.
"It was Alyssa," I said quietly. "My stepsister."
He went still.
Not shocked. Not confused.
Just still.
Then he released my chin, stood up, and turned toward the door.
Fear flared in me instantly.
"Malakai."
He kept walking.
I got to my feet despite the pain in my leg. "Malakai."
This time he stopped, but only just. He turned his head enough for me to see the side of his face, the hard line of his jaw.
"Please," I said. "Don't do anything."
He said nothing.
"It doesn't matter," I rushed on. "She's not worth it. Please don't do anything because of me."
His expression didn't change.
But somehow that was worse.
"Please," I said again, softer now.
For a moment he only looked at me.
Then he gave one short nod and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
I stood there for a long time, staring at the empty space he had left behind.
I should have felt relieved.
I didn't.
Because I had seen that look in his eyes, and men like Malakai did not nod to calm people down. Men like him nodded when they had already made a decision.
Slowly, I sat back on the bed.
The new phone rested in its box beside me. The bracelet circled my wrist, silver flowers catching the dim light while the bullet charm lay cool against my pulse. Beautiful things. Dangerous things.
I touched the bracelet with my fingertips and let out a shaky breath.
Bridget would lose her mind when she saw both gifts.
That thought should have made me smile, and a small part of me almost did.
But beneath that was something else. Something heavier.
A strange knot of comfort and unease.
Because for the first time in a very long time, someone had looked at the hurt on my face and gotten angry on my behalf.
And that should not have meant as much to me as it did.
Outside my window, evening gathered slowly, darkening the sky inch by inch.
Inside the room, I sat alone with expensive gifts, a burning cheek, and the growing suspicion that somewhere in this house, something had already begun.
Something cold.
Something inevitable.
And for the first time all day, I was no longer thinking about what Alisa had done to me.
I was thinking about what Malakai might do to her.