“I was,” he said, simply, without any weight on it.

“And now?”

And he gave me a small, sad, honest smile, and said the thing that finally took down the last wall I had standing.

“Don’t do that, Clara.

Don’t turn a rescue in a freezer vault into a romance novel where you owe me the ending.

Victor is responsible for every evil thing he did, and none of it puts you in my debt.

You don’t owe me your heart because I pulled open a steel door.