Page 220 of His Reckoning

And maybe that was the most dangerous thing about him.Not the control or the distance, but the fact that he carried everything so quietly that no one ever stopped to ask if he should have to.

My voice lowers just slightly.

I wanted to be the one who did because strength like his wasn’t something to fear.It was something to stand beside, to understand and to choose.

I close the book slowly. The sound is soft, final.

For a second, no one moves or even speaks.

Then someone exhales, another person shifts, and suddenly, the entire room breaks.

Applause.

Not loud at first, then building stronger. People wiping at their eyes and shaking their heads, like they didn’t expect to feel something like that tonight.

The sound fills the space, but I don’t hear most of it. I’m already stepping away from the podium, moving off the stage toward the back—toward her.

Because none of this—none of it—matters more than that.

She doesn’t move when I reach her. Not closer or farther away. She just stands there, eyes locked on mine, tears caught in her lashes, like she doesn’t know whether they’re allowed to fall.

Up close, it’s worse. The exhaustion. The quiet hurt she tried to hide from across the street. It’s all there.

“What are you doing?” she asks. Her voice is soft.

I stop a few feet in front of her, close enough to reach.

“Fixing it,” I say.

Her brows pull together slightly. “That’s not how this works, Sawyer.”

“No?” I tilt my head a fraction. “Because I’m pretty sure this is exactly how this works.”

A breath escapes her, somewhere between disbelief and frustration.

“You don’t just stand up in front of a room full of people and read my book like that?—”

“Your book?” I cut in quietly.

Her mouth snaps shut.

I take a step closer. “Kayla, I thought you wrote something that didn’t belong to you.”

My voice is composed, even though everything inside me is anything but. “I thought you took something from me.”

Her gaze drops for half a second, then comes back up.

“I did,” she says. The words land soft but firm. “I should’ve told you. I should’ve warned you. I shouldn’t have let you read it like that without knowing?—”

“You didn’t take anything from me.”

She shakes her head immediately. “I hurt you.”

“Yeah,” I say.

That stops her. The honesty of it.

“I was hurt,” I continue. “And I reacted like someone who doesn’t know how to handle being seen.”