The sterile, blue-tinted shadows of the empty consultation room felt like a pressure cooker as Jayce kicked the door shut behind them, the heavy latch clicking into place with finality.
Jayce is a towering, 6'0" presence of "hard-earned survival." He has a sharp, military-style fade and a jawline that looks carved from granite, smooth Milk chocolate complexion,
currently marred by dark purple bruising and a jagged, bloody gash across his cheek. He wears a heavy, dark mahogany leather trench coat over a black button-down, giving him the silhouette of a man who belongs in the shadows—dangerous, brooding, and intensely protective.
Hazel stands at a delicate 5'3", creating a striking contrast to Jayce's bulk. She has a halo of soft, deep-brown curls and expressive, almond-shaped eyes that radiate empathy, light chestnut complexion. Her light blue scrubs are stained with dirt and salt-water tears, and her petite, scarred hands—with the faint silver lines of past surgeries—tremble as she tries to process the violence she just survived.
He didn't care about the police outside or the chaos in the hall; his entire focus was anchored on the woman standing in front of him, her scrub top still dusted with the grit of a crime scene. "Don't be making stupid decisions like that, Hazel," he rasped, his voice vibrating with a terrifying mix of adrenaline and pure, unadulterated fear. Hazel looked up at him, her chin trembling despite the weapon she'd just fired. "I saved her, Jayce! Why are you so mad?" she shot back, her voice cracking as the reality of the last sixty seconds began to settle into her bones. Jayce took a predatory step forward, his 6'0" frame looming over her 5'3" stature, forcing her to tilt her head back to meet his bloodshot, furious eyes. "Because you've never shot a gun before, Hazel! You don't have a license, you don't have the training—this is your second time playing the damn hero, and I'm telling you to stop because I almost lost you the first time!" He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing her whole as he loomed over her, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists at his sides. "Do you remember the woman in yours and Jessie's care? Do you remember Jessie getting slashed by that knife? You jumped in to save her only to get stabbed multiple times in the back, a dislocated arm, a bruised face—the doctors had to stitch all four of your fingers back together, Hazel! I watched them do it!" The memory hit the room like a physical blow, the image of her mangled hands and the smell of the trauma suite flooding back to both of them. Jayce was breathing hard, the blood from his broken nose dripping onto the floor between them, but he didn't blink, his gaze boring into hers with a desperate, protective intensity that bordered on possession. Hazel went dead quiet, the fire in her eyes doused by the cold, hard truth of his words. She looked down at her hands—the faint, silver scars on her fingers a permanent map of her last "heroic" mistake—and the weight of what she'd just done collapsed on her.
"I-I-I'm sorry, Jayce."
she whispered, her voice small and broken as the first hot tear tracked through the dried blood on her cheek.
She realized then that his anger wasn't about the law or the gun; it was about the fact that he couldn't survive a world where she didn't exist.