Riven Ashbourne

We’d been called to check on a male in psychosis—smoking meth. Word was, if police came near him, he’d try to kill himself.

He was big. Covered in blood already. We didn’t know if it was his or someone else’s. No uniformed units could go. No ambulance. Just us—negotiators in an unmarked car. No sirens. No vests. Just the training.

We spotted him walking down a side street.

He smiled.

He knew who we were. The kind of guy who’s seen too many unmarked cars up close.

Then he bolted—straight into a car park.

We followed. He jumped the kerb and ran into a six-lane road. Traffic everywhere. He was holding scissors.

He was heading straight toward a group of ten or twelve people outside a shop. We didn’t know what he was about to do. Could’ve been anything. If we didn’t beat him there, we might’ve had to shoot him.

We tried to split—go wide, box him in.

But he doubled back. Ran right between us. Back toward the road.

Then a lady—just a driver in the wrong place—hit him with her car. Just enough to send him to the ground. My off-sider tased him. Dropped him flat. Scissors slid across the asphalt.

I jumped on top to hold him down.

That’s when it got weird.

I grabbed his arm to cuff him—and it felt wrong. Like I’d stuck my hand into fish gills or jelly. That’s when I realised… he’d been cutting his wrists while we chased him.

Blood was everywhere.

I cuffed him so he couldn’t hurt himself anymore. Ran to the car, grabbed the tac med gear, came back. That’s when I saw the bright pink.

Fluoro pink blood.

Arterial.

It wasn’t just his wrists. When I thought he was trying to put the scissors in his bag, he was jamming them into his collarbone—into his neck.

I shoved in QuickClot. My fingers inside his shoulder, trying to find a vein to clamp. Couldn’t. Just packed and held.

He kept trying to move. Kept trying to die.

We held him down until the ambos arrived. They sedated him and rushed him to hospital.

And then we just stood there.

Covered in blood.

We washed off with warm soapy water. I had grazes—on my side, under my shirt. We weren’t sure. We called the hospital, but they wouldn’t tell us anything. Medical confidentiality.

So I waited.

Three months.

Didn’t sleep with anyone. Didn’t kiss anyone. Didn’t make plans. Didn’t tell people why. Just waited.

No one checked in. No calls. No psychologist. Nothing.

Eventually I got cleared.

Everyone laughed it off. Said, “See? No drama.”

The sun was just starting to dip behind the gumtrees when Riven pulled into the gravel drive. The little country cottage stood like a memory—weathered, soft, and impossibly still. For once, he wasn’t late. For once, he brought hope with him.

He stepped out, dust still settling around his boots. Gem was already there. Sitting on the porch swing, barefoot, her dress falling over one knee. Her smile—when it rose to meet him—wasn’t the one he remembered.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, brushing her hair back behind one ear. She looked the same. And completely different.

He walked up slow, heart louder than his footsteps. “You came.”

“Of course I did.” She patted the seat beside her. “It’s been a long time.”

He sat down, exhaling, hands clasped together like a man holding something fragile. “I thought about this moment more times than I’ll admit.”

She didn’t say anything. Just looked out at the horizon, arms crossed tight over her chest.

“I thought maybe…” he started, the words shaky but honest. “Maybe this time, we wouldn’t miss each other.”

She laughed, quiet and sad. “You always did dream bigger than me.”

His jaw tensed. “Gem, I never wanted a dream. Just a shot. You and me—just once, without an exit plan.”

“I know.” She looked at him then. Not like the girl he’d loved. Like the woman who’d survived loving him from afar. “And I wanted it too. I really did.”

“Then why do you look like you’re already halfway gone?”

She blinked. Her eyes shimmered, but she didn’t cry.

“Because he doesn’t excite me. But he’s safe. He’s... consistent. And I’m tired, Riv.”

His name hit like a blade.

“I don’t love him,” she whispered. “Not the way I could’ve loved you. But loving you would burn me to the ground.”

He swallowed hard, nodding slowly. The swing creaked. His hands unclenched. “I wouldn’t have asked you to stay in the fire.”

“But I know you,” she said. “You are the fire.”

He stood then, quietly. Looked at her like she was a country song he used to believe in.

“You were the only one I ever thought I could stay for.”

She looked up, tear finally falling. “You’re the only one I ever wanted to run away with.”

And that was the cruel symmetry of them.

Always almost.

That’s what I’ve always called her. Emerald Edgerton, if you’re asking for paperwork. But that name’s too polished. Too far from the dirt roads and quiet moments she comes from.

She’s got this hair—long, wild, honey-blonde. Not the type you style, the type that just lands right. Like it grew that way to mess with men. And it works. It always worked on me.

Her eyes? Blue. But not that washed-out blue you see on girls with empty dreams. No—hers are deep. Like sky-before-the-storm blue. You look at them and know she’s seen things. Felt things. And maybe forgave people for more than they deserved.

She smiles like she’s in on the joke and you’re still catching up. Full lips. A hint of a smirk. Like she knows exactly what she’s doing—and doesn’t care if it ruins you.

She’s soft, but don’t mistake that for weakness. She’s the kind of soft that stays. The kind you remember in silence. The kind you don't deserve twice.

She was always almost mine. We circled each other for years. Every five, ten spins around the sun, we’d find each other again. Just long enough to burn. Never long enough to belong.

She once told me her safe word was “green.”

Fitting. She always made me slow down.

And maybe that’s why I never stayed.

Because part of me knew—if I ever let her have all of me…

I’d never leave.

Richmond had a tempo—drugs, overdoses, street fights, chaos—but it was a rhythm Riven had learned to move with. He was off the van, partnered with a senior member. She was good—fast, sharp, confident. The kind of cop you wanted beside you when things got loud.

They pulled in a junkie, twitchy and erratic. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just another arrest in a string of faces blurring together.

She went to search him—no hesitation, hands in his pockets before he’d even fully settled.

And then she froze.

A hiss. A whisper of pain.

A sharp intake of breath.

Blood on her glove.

The needle had caught her. Clean.

He saw her face change. Not from the physical pain, but the knowing.

They processed the crook quickly—someone else took over. Riven drove her straight to the hospital.

She didn’t say much.

In the waiting room, surrounded by strangers and fluorescent lights, her badge meant nothing. No one looked twice. Just another number waiting for answers. She sat still, fists clenched in her lap, blood pressure through the roof. He sat beside her. Said little. Just stayed.

Later, she’d tell him how alone she felt. How everything in her life suddenly had an asterisk next to it—“If I have something.” How three months could feel like three lifetimes.

She had a family.

He never forgot that part.

Never forgot what it looked like to watch someone process the possibility that everything—everything—might be taken away because of one routine act. One second. One hidden needle.

She tested clear, eventually.

But the fear lingered.

But they don’t tell you how easily it sneaks in—how it wears the same face as routine.

It was early in my police career at my training station.

An affluent suburb. Quiet. Clean. The kind of place where the worst you’d usually find in a search was a half-gram baggie of coke tucked into the pocket of a uni student with rich parents and a good lawyer.

This bloke was different. But not enough to raise alarms.

I’d asked the question, like we always did:

“Do you have anything sharp on you? Anything that might stick me?”

He shook his head. Looked me straight in the eye. “Nah, mate. All good.”

And I believed him. Or worse—I didn’t care.

Not in a cruel way. Just… routine.

I reached into his jacket pocket, same as I’d done a hundred times already.

And felt the sting.

It wasn’t deep.

It wasn’t even painful.

Just sharp enough to stop my breath for half a second.

Enough to realise I’d screwed up.

I pulled my hand back, looked at the glove, and felt my stomach drop.

Then the guy laughed.

“Oh yeah—forgot about that. Sorry, mate.”

I didn’t say anything.

Didn’t trust what would come out of my mouth if I did.

Back in the patrol car, I filled the glove with water.

It’s a trick they teach you—if the water doesn’t leak through, there’s a good chance the needle didn’t either.

It held. No drops. No tears.

Didn’t matter.

My hands were clean, but my mind wasn’t.

I still went for the blood tests. Still had the wait. Still had the moment where you lie awake wondering what you might have taken home from a stranger’s pocket.

It was the first time I realised the uniform wasn’t armor.

That this job doesn’t just break you with the big moments.

It wears you down in tiny, invisible ways.

She had packed light, but she carried the weight of it all.

The airport hummed around her—metallic voices, rustling tickets, final calls. But Sam heard none of it. All she could hear was her own heart thudding against a chest too full, too raw, too alive.

She stood still, boarding pass clenched, jacket heavy in her arms—not from fabric, but from every moment pressed into its seams. From the way he had held her in it the night before. From the way she hadn’t wanted the night to end.

She hadn’t said much that morning. Neither had he. But it wasn’t apathy—it was fear.

Because speaking aloud might’ve shattered whatever fragile magic had wrapped itself around them in the dark.

She’d barely slept, afraid that if she did, she’d wake to find it wasn’t real.

And now, as he stepped closer—close enough that her skin remembered him before her mind could protest—she held her breath.

“You good, priestess?”

She almost smiled. Almost.

The nickname hit her like a bruise being pressed. A fond ache.

“Don’t call me that here,” she whispered, eyes burning.

Because here wasn’t a sacred space.

Here was goodbye.

And she couldn’t carry the name he gave her into the silence that would follow this moment.

“Where then?” he murmured.

“Where do I get to call you mine?”

Her throat tightened.

Because the truth was—she already was his, in the ways that mattered most. In the ways that meant she could never fully belong to anyone else again.

But she didn’t answer.

Because answering would undo her.

Because she didn’t know how to love him and leave him at the same time.

Because she wasn’t sure if he ever wanted her to stay… and god, if he asked her to, she would have.

But he didn’t.

So she stood still, pretending her heart wasn’t breaking.

⸻

[Flashback – The Hotel Room, 3:12 AM]

She remembered how the city lights spilled through the blinds like a secret.

How her skin had glowed under him—not because of the light, but because of how he looked at her.

Like she was worth witnessing.

She hadn’t meant to give herself away.

But something in the way he held her—not owned, not tamed, just held—told her she was safe to.

She hadn’t made a sound at first.

She was too used to hiding.

Too used to being the strong one. The composed one. The unshakable flame.

But then he saw her.

“You’re not hiding tonight,” he whispered, hand warm against her throat, not to hold—just to remind her she existed.

And something inside her cracked.

She hadn’t expected to cry.

But when the tears came, they weren’t sadness.

They were surrender.

She had been touched before, kissed before, fucked before.

But this?

This was worship.

He looked into her eyes like they were the sky he’d been searching for.

He held her even in her wildest breaking.

“Look at me, wild one.”

And she did.

Even when she couldn’t speak. Even when her body shook like it was remembering what it meant to feel holy.

She held his gaze and let him see her—every inch, every scar, every story etched into her bones.

And when he whispered “Good girl”, she broke all over again.

Not because she was submissive, but because for once, she didn’t have to be strong.

She just had to be herself.

And he didn’t flinch.

He kissed her tears like they were sacred.

And in that room, for the first time in years, she believed she was.

⸻

[Airport – Present]

The speaker called her flight, and for a moment, she thought about missing it.

Just to see what he would do.

But he didn’t stop her.

He touched her wrist, softly. Right where he had once kissed her heartbeat.

“Don’t say it,” she said quickly, swallowing the lump rising in her throat.

“I wasn’t going to.”

She turned then—because looking at him too long felt like asking the universe for one more miracle she knew it wouldn’t give.

Her eyes met his, and suddenly she was 3:12 AM again.

Bare. Loved. Unraveled.

“You’ll forget me,” she said with a ghost of a smile, even though she knew he wouldn’t.

Even though she never would.

“I haven’t yet.”

That was the last thing he said.

So she kissed him.

Not to linger.

Not to stay.

But to honour the way he’d made her come alive.

To leave a piece of her soul pressed against his mouth.

Then she turned—without looking back.

Because if she did, she’d run.

And he wasn’t the kind of man who asked her to stay.

But god, if he had…

She would have.

He was the last one left—two of his mates already in cuffs. But this guy wasn’t going quietly. He had a history. He knew what waited on the other side of the van doors. So he ran.

And ran.

Shantytown back alleys. Rooftops. Dogs barking. Boots echoing on corrugated iron. Shadows moving faster than flashlights.

We boxed him in eventually. Few square blocks. No air wing, but we had a K9 unit and eyes on every corner. He was on the phone with me the whole time—breathing hard, pretending he was somewhere else.

But I could hear the patrol cars in the background.

We were close.

He panicked. I heard it in the shift of his voice—something changed. Then the call cut.

He jumped.

Misjudged the roof.

Snapped his leg on the landing.

I didn’t need GPS. He called me back screaming—“It’s bad, man. You have to come. Please.”

I ran.

Found him curled up in a shadowed corner between two old units. Bone through the skin. Blood pooling. The kind of injury you smell before you see.

I dropped beside him. Tourniquet first—tight, fast. He was still conscious, still talking, panicking, shaking.

Two of the boys joined me. We stabilized him. Kept pressure. Waited for the ambos.

Then someone checked his history.

HIV positive.

He never told us.

Didn’t warn us before we touched him. Didn’t mention it while we were up to our elbows in his blood. Just lay there bleeding and talking.

Maybe he was too far gone to think.

Or maybe he didn’t care.

We stripped down back at the van. Gloves off. Shirts peeled. Pants too. Blood was everywhere—on our sleeves, down our arms, in places we hadn’t even noticed. We took turns inspecting each other under streetlights—checking for cuts, grazes, anything that might’ve let something in.

It was surreal.

Four men, half-naked on a side street, in silence.

Trying to figure out if this was the day that changed everything.

None of us had breaks in the skin. We got lucky.

But we still had to wait.

Three months.

Three months of what-ifs. Three months of second-guessing that moment—whether we hesitated, whether we looked close enough.

We all pretended it was fine.

He’s not just one you remember from a night you never forgot.

He’s one of those who stood between chaos and the people who never even knew it was coming.

Who didn’t flinch when it got violent.

Who kept secrets he’ll never get medals for.

Army or police—it didn’t matter.

He was always one who stepped forward first.

Not because he thought he could take it.

But because he’d rather carry the scars than watch someone else who didn’t deserve to.

He’s been in helicopters over foreign jungles.

In back alleys behind clubs where the music’s still pounding and someone’s gasping for breath.

He’s knocked on doors with messages of death in his mouth and walked away like it didn’t ruin him.

He’s the guy the dancers disclosed secrets with to make their 'handlers' disappear.

The guy the dealers gave a quiet nod to—because even enemies respect a man with rules.

He’ll flirt with you, sure.

Make you feel like you’re the only one in the room.

But you’ll never know how many names he still remembers.

How many people he tried to save and couldn’t.

There’s the lover you remember.

And then there’s the grief he wears like skin.

Both are him.

It wasn’t a busy night.

Midweek. Quiet. Just a slow beat, shadows, and soft neon bleeding through velvet walls.

She came on stage in teal—blonde hair, icy blue eyes, lingerie like it was painted on.

He watched her like a man watches a flame: quiet, unsure, unable to look away.

When she stepped off the stage, he was waiting.

Paid for a few dances.

Each one slower than the last.

Each one quieter, warmer.

Then he reached for his wallet again—and she gently pushed it back into his pocket.

“There’s no need for this for the rest of the night,” she said.

“I’d rather sit with you anyway.”

She stayed.

Laughed at his stupid rhinestone belt.

Took it off. Wore it like a jeweled bra.

Nothing but that, and a look he still dreams about.

No one else got her that night.

Just him.

And he never let anyone else wear that belt again.

It’s still his favorite.

He lost seven hours in that velvet-lit world.

When he walked out, the sun was already up—sharp, arrogant, bright.

He stepped into the elevator, quiet, blinking, belt slung over his shoulder like a trophy from a dream.

The suite was dark. One mate on the couch, the other passed out on the floor like gravity had claimed him.

And then the hotel phone rang.

He picked it up, half-awake, half-changed.

The concierge’s voice was calm as sunrise.

“Good morning, sir. Margaritas?”

And that was Vegas.

She stayed behind in the dark.

But the belt? That came home with him.

He got a message.

“Never speak to my wife again, you're dead when i get back.”

And then another.

“We worked it out, he said it’s fine. Come over.”

So he did.

She smelled like scorched vanilla and warm skin when she opened the door—dressed in order to distract him from the truth of the situation and ready for whatever she had coming. She offered him a drink like nothing had happened.

He took one sip.

Then he tied her wrists to the bedpost.

She nodded in acceptance and acknowledgement that she was no longer the person in charge or in a nurturing environment.

He made her cum again. And again. And again.

Until her voice was gone. Until she forgot why she ever lied.

Then he slid inside her.

Slow. Focused. Distant.

He didn’t rush. Didn’t say a word.

He took his time sliding out slowly and driving in hard making her whimper. He positioned her in all the ways he'd seen in the books he'd read earlier. He stopped when her legs wouldn't stop shaking.

He never came.

He didn’t need to.

He got dressed.

Left the glass on the bench.

And didn’t look back.

She never messaged again.

And the husband—he told his version.

But Riven already knew:

Some truths you carry in silence.

Some revenge doesn’t need witnesses.

He was twenty-one.

She was thirty-one.

And married.

He’d never been invited into something like this before—never even heard of “hotwifing” or couples who shared their beds with others. It sounded like a whispered fantasy someone might joke about in the barracks, not something real. Not something offered.

But it was.

His friend had gone away on course, said it was fine. “We’ve talked about it,” he’d said. “She likes younger guys. Just don’t be weird.”

It felt weird. All of it.

But she was stunning. Not just attractive—stunning.

She had deep, dark brown eyes that could quiet a room.

Full lips made for secrets.

And a body unlike anything Riven had ever seen before. She had lived in that body. Had children. Stretch marks on her belly like silvered lightning. Soft curves that didn’t try to hide themselves. Breasts that drew his eyes before he could remember to be respectful.

He wasn’t looking at her like a conquest.

He was studying her like art.

And when she kissed him, it didn’t feel dirty. It felt... surreal.

Like something from a secret chapter in a book he wasn’t supposed to be reading yet.

She took her time with him. Not just physically—but emotionally.

She touched him with purpose. Let him linger. Let herself savor what it meant to have a man nearly half her husband’s age laid out in front of her, nervous and reverent, completely unsure of the rules but ready to obey.

Riven, even with all his walls, still wanted to be trusted by someone.

And in that moment, she made him feel chosen.

He didn’t know then that truth and permission weren’t always the same thing.

He just knew that she wanted him.

And he was ready to be wanted.

He didn’t know why she looked at him that way.

He was awkward, green, barely more than a boy pretending to be something he wasn’t ready for... but she looked at him like she already knew what he could become. Like he wasn’t just worth her time, but her touch. She didn’t laugh when he fumbled. She didn’t flinch when he hesitated. She just... waited. Patient. Certain.

She kissed him like he was made of something soft. Something good. Like he wasn’t a wreck in waiting.

And when her hands moved over him, it wasn’t to claim or conquer, it was to teach.

"Let me," she whispered.

And he did.

He let her guide him. Slow, assured, nurturing in a way that wrecked him more than any roughness ever could. She told him what felt good. What not to rush. How to listen with his hands. How to move with intention, not instinct. How to give more without saying a word.

He watched her eyes flutter when he got it right. Felt the pride in her breath when he slowed down. And in those moment... Skin to skin, breath to breath... He was no longer fumbling. He was learning. From someone who wanted him to know what it could be like... when it wasn’t about power, or performance, or pain.

They were only together a handful of times. But she taught him more than any book or screen or whispered story ever could.

She didn’t just show him how to make love.

> “It’s like selling a high,” she said.

Riven didn’t answer right away. Just lit a cigarette, watched the smoke curl.

“You mean sex?”

She nodded. “You sell the feeling. The power. The idea that you’re wanted.”

“Even when you’re not.”

She smiled at that—quiet, dangerous. “Especially then.”

They were both lying on top of the sheets, not touching. A shared silence between two people who knew how to fake connection so well, it almost felt real.

“You ever fake it?” she asked.

“All the time,” he said. “But not with you.”

She rolled her head toward him. “Why not?”

Riven exhaled. “Because you knew I would. And you didn’t care.”

She laughed, soft and dark. “Same.”

For once, no masks. No performance. Just two people who knew how to lie with their bodies—choosing, for one night, to tell the truth.

No one paid.

No one owed.

They’d forget each other’s names by morning.

That’s how she knew he meant it.

They were lying on top of the covers. Half-dressed. Breathing like survivors.

Her wrists still ached from where she’d pushed someone off. Her voice was shot from laughing too loud at drunks who thought they were gods.

“He tried to grab my face,” she said.

Riven didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask what she did next. He just… listened.

She gave him the car, the cologne, the angle of the guy’s ring.

“He had that look,” she added. “The one where they think you’re already theirs.”

Riven’s voice was almost a growl. “Yeah. That look.”

She rolled over, watched his chest rise and fall.

“Why do you care, Ashbourne?”

He didn’t look at her. Didn’t pretend to be soft.

“Because no one else does. And because you told me.”

That was it. No lies. No promises.

Just one man in the world who heard her and didn’t look away.

She didn’t love him. She knew better.

But tonight? She trusted him.

And that was more dangerous than love anyway.

Riven was half-dressed, boots off, shirt crumpled at the edge of her bed.

They lay there, not touching, just breathing in sync like people who had been in separate storms and found the same silence.

“He tried to grab my face,” she murmured. “Like it was his.”

Riven didn’t look at her. Just stared at the ceiling. “Which one?”

She gave him the nickname. The car. The way he held his drink. The moment she knew something was wrong.

“He had that look,” she whispered. “The one they get when they think no one sees them.”

Riven nodded slowly. “They’re always the loudest when they’re about to run.”

She turned to him then. Hair sticking to her cheek. “Why do you care, Ashbourne?”

His voice was low, honest, unguarded:

“Because no one else does. And because you told me.”

She didn’t smile. Just let out a shaky breath and pressed her forehead to his chest.

They weren’t in love.

But it was real. And safe. And after a night like that, it was everything.

I told him everything.

What I wore. What I whispered. How he looked at me like he knew I’d already chosen someone else.

And still, Riven didn’t flinch.

He lit a cigarette and said, “Tell me more.”

I think he liked knowing I was someone else's fantasy.

What he didn’t know was that even with someone else inside me,

> I didn’t know how to say any of this when I had the chance.

Maybe I still don’t.

I just wanted you to know—none of it was pretend.

Not the quiet moments. Not the way I looked at you when you weren’t watching.

I left, not because I didn’t care.

I left because I cared more than I was ever supposed to.

You would’ve given me peace.

And I would’ve taken it and ruined it in the name of survival.

That’s what I do. I leave good things alone.

But you should know this:

I remember the sound of your voice in the spaces where I can’t hear anything else.

I remember the smell of your skin like a fire that didn’t go out.

And if I could rewrite the world,

I’d let myself be the man you saw,

even if only for one more night.

I hope you found soft hands.

I hope they stay.

And I hope somewhere, when it rains—