Page 100 of Grim

Her bare feet slapped against the hallway floor, her breath ragged, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears.

Grim was sitting on the floor outside the door.

Back against the wall. Arms resting on his knees. Head tipped back like he’d been listening for every sound she made.

His eyes snapped open the second she emerged.

He didn’t stand. Didn’t crowd her. Didn’t ask questions.

He just said, “Come here.”

Her throat tightened. Her legs moved before her mind caught up.

She sank down beside him, still wrapped in the towel, still shaking. The cool wall pressed against her back, grounding her just enough to breathe. Grim didn’t touch her, not until she leaned into him first, her shoulder brushing his.

Only then did he shift, slow and careful, letting his arm settle behind her without pulling her in.

She rested her forehead against her knees. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t stay in there.”

“You don’t have to,” Grim murmured. “Not tonight.”

His voice was low, steady, a quiet anchor in the storm still raging under her skin.

Not tonight. Not alone. Not ever again, if he had anything to say about it.

Sophia closed her eyes, letting herself breathe in the warmth of him, the steadiness of him, the safety she didn’t feel yet but desperately wanted to.

And Grim stayed right there, a silent sentinel in the dim hallway, holding the world back for her while she tried to remember how to exist in it.

Chapter 33

Grim

Sophia didn’t move for a long time.

She sat on the hallway floor wrapped in a towel, knees pulled tight to her chest, breath still uneven from the panic that had chased her out of the bathroom. The house was quiet, but not the comforting kind; it was the kind of quiet that made her ears ring, the kind that made every shadow feel like it was watching.

Grim stayed beside her.

Not touching. Not crowding. Just there.

His presence was a steady heat at her side, a silent anchor in a world that still felt like it was tilting beneath her feet. He kept his breathing slow, controlled, like even the sound of it might startle her.

Sophia wiped at her face with the edge of the towel, her hands trembling. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, though she didn’t seem to know what she was apologizing for — the panic, the flinch, the way her body betrayed her at every turn.

“You don’t owe me an apology,” Grim said quietly. “Not for any of this.”

His voice was low, rough, steady — the kind of steady that came from a man who’d learned how to hold himself together in the middle of chaos. But he heard the strain under it. The fear. The anger, not at her, but at what had been done to her.

Sophia swallowed hard. “I’m just… tired.”

Grim nodded once. “Then let’s get you somewhere comfortable.”

She didn’t want the bedroom. Too dark. Too many corners. Too much space for her mind to wander.

“The couch,” she murmured.

Grim didn’t question it. Didn’t try to steer her anywhere else.