The tension in the kitchen was like a living organism sticky, heavy, sticking to your skin and choking in your throat. You held a mug in your hands, the contents of which had long since cooled, but you didn’t have the strength to put it down. You felt everything inside you tremble not from the cold, but from that icy fear that had settled in your guts since you’d seen that.

Jax sat at the table. He rested his elbows on the counter, his hands folded, his gaze fixed somewhere on the wood, as if trying to avoid your gaze. Silence spread through the room like stinking smoke and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. You stood across from him. You wanted to say something, to ask again, to understand, to save you, but your voice froze in your throat. Your heart pounded as if it were about to explode. Images came back to your mind the blood on his hands, the dead gaze of the man he’d killed.

And Jax, calm, cold, unmoving. Then he jumped out of the chair. Slowly, without haste, as if everything that was happening was just an ordinary evening. The sound of a piece of furniture being moved cut through you like a knife. He was standing sideways now, only slightly turned towards you. A shadow fell across his face, but you saw how he tensed his jaw.

There was something unreadable in his eyes. Something menacingly familiar. Without emotion, without warmth, without even reaching out, he just quietly said, "Reya... Fuck, stop carrying this like it was your cross."

This is all you got. No assurances. No relief. Just this one thing: This is my world. You entered it yourself.