Standing there like this, listening to the sound of his heart beating, Isobel could almost feel like the world was right. Like when she had first moved to Bellum, with everything new and exciting and full of possibilities. She should have known that eventually, her honeymoon with the building wound end and she'd start to see what people were really made of here. All the lying, the backstabbing, murder, rape, trouble and terror... she couldn't stand a bit of it. It wasn't the way her mama had raised her, and even though her mama had her own problems, she always taught Isobel to be good to the people she met. You get kindness from others when you're kind to them first.
She let out a breath, fingers tightening a hair, a wave of tension holding her tight for several heartbeats before she forced her muscles to relax and her shoulders to sink back down. "Thank you," she whispered softly, her voice more fragile than she would have liked. She wasn't supposed to need people, wasn't supposed to want this. But she couldn't bring herself to pull away because it felt like the only thing she could trust right then.