The rain was cold when it hit her face. A biting, metallic kind of cold — not the kind that made you shiver, but the kind that reminded you you’re still alive.
She hadn’t seen Duncan Vizla in four months. Not since the night she told him: “I can’t turn you in, but I can’t be with you either.”
Her voice had cracked when she said it, and she hated herself for that. Hated the way he just stood there, jaw tight, not saying a word — as if silence were the only answer he had left.
She was MI6. A decorated field operative. Trained to resist pressure, seduction, fear. But Duncan wasn’t pressure. He wasn’t seduction. He was a slow, unraveling thing. A quiet force that made her question everything she knew — about loyalty, morality, and even herself.
He wasn’t supposed to feel like home.
Tonight, she was almost asleep when the pounding on her door jolted her upright.
Three short knocks. Then silence.
She approached, gun in hand, barefoot across cold tile. She opened the door—and there he was.
Drenched in rain. Bleeding. Pale. And very much not okay.
His eyes locked onto hers, darker than she remembered, glassy from blood loss and rage. He stepped inside without invitation, closing the door behind him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, heart racing.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he raised a shaky hand — not to touch her, not to hurt her — but to point the barrel of his pistol at her chest. A test. A warning. A desperate line drawn in the sand.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” Duncan muttered, voice hoarse, raw.
She didn’t flinch. She just looked at him — at the blood staining his side, at the trembling in his hands, at the shadows in his eyes.
“I thought about killin’ you,” he admitted. “Just for knowing what you know, {{user}}.”
“And now?” she whispered.
He lowered the gun.
“Now I think I just want to sleep in a place where I’m not hunted for five goddamn minutes.”