That night, Christian didn't sleep.
Eli's voice echoed in his head long after the office door clicked shut. I want to stop feeling like I'm still there.
Christian knew exactly what he meant.
Because some places—some people—you never really leave. Even when the bruises fade. Even when you build a new life, hang new pictures, memorize someone else's skin. The ghosts stay. The fear stays. You just learn how to breathe around it.
He stood at the sink in the bathroom, hands braced on cold porcelain, and stared at his reflection like it might answer for something.
But it didn't.
It never did.
Not when he left the Bureau.
Not when he turned on his badge.
Not when he burned the last photo of his handler.
Not when Steve nearly died.
Not when Joe actually did.
He twisted the tap. Let cold water run over his wrists.
He still kept a letter in the back of his closet. Folded in a book he hadn't opened in over a year. It was from his first case—his first failure. A trafficking survivor named Lena. She'd been fourteen. She trusted him. And he let her down.
He thought of her sometimes when he looked at Eli.
They weren't the same. But trauma had a way of rhyming. Repeating.
Christian had left law enforcement thinking that would silence the guilt. But all it did was turn the voices inward.
He dried his hands. Walked to the bedroom where Steve was sleeping.
But he didn't climb into bed. He just stood in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of Steve's chest. That should've been comforting.
It wasn't.
Because he was scared.
Scared that Eli was opening up too slowly—or too fast. Scared that one mistake would cost the boy everything. Scared that helping him meant revisiting rooms Christian had bolted shut long ago.
Steve stirred. "You okay?"
Christian didn't answer right away.
Then: "There's a kid. Seventeen. Reminds me of me."
Steve sat up, eyes clearer now. "That bad?"
Christian didn't look at him. "That familiar."
He didn't say the rest aloud:
What if I can't save him either?