The adrenaline ebbed in jagged waves.

  Michael's hands wouldn't stop shaking. He kept them clenched at his sides as if holding them still might undo what had just happened. The cut on his arm had begun to sting now—thin, bright pain tracking along muscle—but it barely registered beside the heavier ache lodged in his chest.

  Willow didn't let go of him.

  "Come on," she said gently, already guiding him back the way they'd come. "We're going somewhere safe."

  He followed without protest. The word safe threaded through him like a lifeline.

  Field of Waves welcomed them with quiet. Willow locked the door behind them and flicked on the lights one by one, the room warming as if it recognised them. She moved with practiced calm, the way she did during a rush—focused, steady, grounded.

  "Sit," she said, steering him to a chair near the bar. "Don't move."

  He obeyed.

  She returned with the first aid kit, kneeling in front of him. When she rolled his sleeve up, her breath hitched—but she didn't let her hands falter. She cleaned the cut carefully, methodically, the way he had taught her to treat burns and nicks in the kitchen.

  "You're shaking," she murmured.

  "So are you," he replied quietly.

  She glanced up at him then, eyes dark and fierce. "I can shake later."

  The sirens grew louder, then stopped outside. Willow didn't flinch. She finished taping the bandage and stood just as the knock came at the door.

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  The police were efficient, professional. Statements taken. Descriptions noted. The men, they said, had already fled—but they would follow up. There were cameras nearby. Witnesses.

  When the officers finally left, the silence settled back in—different now. Heavier. Charged.

  Michael leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. "I didn't mean to—"

  "I know," Willow said.

  He looked up at her then, finally, and she saw it—the fear behind the restraint. The boy who had learned too early that surviving meant never being seen as dangerous.

  "I don't get violent," he said hoarsely. "Not like that."

  "You didn't," she replied without hesitation. "You protected."

  Her certainty anchored him.

  She reached out and took his uninjured hand. He didn't pull away. He didn't lean in either. They stayed like that, balanced between breath and touch, the room holding them gently.

  Outside, the wind eased. The sea softened its rhythm.

  Michael closed his eyes.

  For the first time in months, his body stopped bracing for the next blow.

  Willow's Diary

  I watched him choose restraint

  even while fighting.

  He carries so much fear of becoming

  what hurt him.

  He never crossed that line.

  Poem — Stillness After

  There is a quiet

  that comes after danger

  when the body remembers

  it survived.

  Stay here.

  Let the shaking pass.

  You don't have to be strong

  alone.