Chapter Eight
~ Danny ~
The first thing I noticed was the sound of silence.
No screaming. No TV blaring infomercials at an ear-bleed volume.
No heavy boots crashing down the hall like a SWAT raid.
Just the low, steady tick of a clock and, somewhere distant, the coo of a mourning dove.
For a minute I thought I’d died and gone to whatever afterlife omegas get when the universe is through with them.
Then I realized it just meant I’d made it through the night.
The guest room was dim, the curtains pulled just enough that sunrise bled in at the edges.
I lay still, taking inventory. My ribs hurt, but not in a way that felt new.
My face throbbed and my left eye wouldn’t open all the way.
Everything else was one big bruise with a gradient from yellow to black.
But I could breathe, and my hands were steady, and I didn’t have to flinch every time the floor creaked.
I turned my head—slow, because my neck was a disaster zone—and saw Burke slumped in the chair beside the bed.
The position looked like torture, but he’d made it work: head tilted back, one arm flopped over the side, a paperback splayed on his stomach and threatening to dive for the floor with each exhale.
His other hand, though, was still holding mine.
Loosely, like he’d fallen asleep mid-squeeze and forgotten to let go.
I stared at his fingers, at the ridges of his knuckles and the tiny scars that mapped their own history along his skin. It was the first time in my life someone had held my hand all the way through the night and not let go, even in sleep.
I could’ve watched him for hours, but a sneeze snuck up and rattled through me before I could clamp it down.
The sudden pain made me yelp. Burke was vertical in a blink, green eyes wide and scanning for threats.
When he saw it was just me, his face broke into something between relief and sheepish panic.
“Hey, you’re up!” he said, too loud, then tried to modulate it back down to human. “Uh. How do you feel?”
I tried to smile, but my lip reminded me not to. “Like I lost a fight with a combine harvester.”
He squeezed my hand tighter, then gently set it on the comforter before shifting the chair closer. “If you want, I can break the combine’s kneecaps.”
I let out a laugh that was mostly a cough. “Pretty sure combines don’t have knees, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
He smirked, and for a second the lines around his eyes deepened, making him look older and softer at the same time. Then he got all business. “You need anything? Water, painkillers, breakfast?”
At the word “breakfast,” my stomach both lurched and rumbled. I wasn’t sure I could keep anything down, but the idea was intoxicating.
Burke must’ve seen the calculation on my face. “I can make toast. Or, like, toast-level difficulty foods. Jojo left a note that you’re not supposed to eat anything heavy yet, but I say we rebel.”
He offered an arm like I was royalty, and when I tried to sit up, he braced me under the shoulders and hauled me vertical with way less effort than I expected. I tried not to gasp when the room spun, but I must’ve made a noise because he hovered, ready to catch me if I toppled over.
It was embarrassing, but also…not. Not like before, when every little failure was an excuse for someone to call me weak. More like he was tuned into my bandwidth, listening for static and ready to boost the signal if I faded out.
Once I was upright, he shuffled me into a giant bathrobe—easily twice my size—and I was glad for it because the guest room was cold and my pajamas were a lost cause.
He steadied me all the way to the kitchen, moving slow so I wouldn’t have to limp too obviously. The house smelled like wood smoke and the faint ghost of last night’s bacon. It reminded me of holiday mornings, back before everything in my family went to shit.
He deposited me in a kitchen chair and started rummaging for supplies. I watched him move, all precision and muscle memory, like he’d been born knowing where the peanut butter was in any kitchen in the world.
It was weirdly comforting.
The fridge was covered in cartoons and grocery lists and something that looked like a crayon drawing of the ranch with “home” spelled out in shaky kid letters. He ignored it all, focused on the task.
I thought maybe he’d start talking about the weather or ask about my night, but instead he said, “Do you take your eggs scrambled or more like…egg-shaped?”
The question caught me off guard. “Uh, scrambled, if it’s not too much trouble.”
He grinned. “Scrambled is my only move, so you’re in luck.”
He cracked eggs with one hand, barely looking, and whisked them up with a fork so fast it made my head spin. The sizzle on the pan was immediate and holy. He found bread, popped slices in the toaster, and grabbed a tub of margarine from the fridge, all without breaking stride.
When the eggs hit the plate, they were a perfect, fluffy yellow. The toast landed next to them, golden and gleaming.
He slid the plate in front of me, along with a fork and a glass of orange juice. “Eat slow,” he cautioned. “And if you want to bail out halfway, just say the word.”
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the first bite. The food was perfect, not gourmet, but the kind of thing you crave when you haven’t felt safe in weeks. I scarfed it in careful mouthfuls, chewing each bite into submission so it wouldn’t rebel on the way down.
Burke made himself a plate and sat across from me. He waited until I’d finished half the eggs before he said, “So. Sheriff Calloway came by last night after you fell asleep.”
I flinched, remembering the glare of police lights from yesterday and the sound of my own voice saying, “I want to press charges this time.”
It sounded a lot braver in my head.
Burke must’ve seen the panic on my face. He shook his head, reassuring. “No, it’s good. He picked up Dennis at the Jenkins place around two. Found him passed out in the kitchen, fighting imaginary monsters. Last I heard, he was in lockup, and nobody’s bailing him out for at least a day or two.”
I processed that. Relief poured through me, pure and unfamiliar, like a fever breaking. But it was chased immediately by the fear that it couldn’t last.
“He’ll get out,” I said, my voice small. “He always gets out.”
Burke reached across the table, his hand finding mine again. “Maybe. But this time, there’s an actual paper trail. And Calloway’s not screwing around.” He squeezed my fingers, then let go. “You’re safe here, Danny. You don’t have to worry about him for now.”
It was the “for now” that hooked me. I tried to focus on my eggs, but my hands had started shaking again. I dropped the fork, barely catching it before it clattered off the table.
Burke didn’t comment. He just leaned back in his chair and said, “You can stay here as long as you need, you know. Jojo’s already drawing up a chore chart. And if you want to finish school, we’ll figure it out. This place is big enough for everyone.”
I stared at him. Not because I doubted him, but because nobody had ever offered me that before. A place to just…stay. To exist, without strings attached or rent due in pain.
The words got stuck in my throat. I blinked hard, looking away so he wouldn’t see the tears that threatened to betray me.
He let the silence sit. Not the awkward kind, but the kind that said take your time, there’s enough of it here for both of us.
When I finally trusted myself to speak, I said, “Thank you. For…all of this. For not letting me go back there.”
He smiled, and for the first time since I’d met him, it wasn’t cocky or sarcastic. Just simple and sincere. “It’s nothing,” he said, but it wasn’t.
I forced down another bite, tried to steady my hands. The food helped, a buffer against the rawness of the morning. For a little while, we just ate, the sun crawling up the kitchen wall, the world outside moving at half speed.
When I finished, he took my plate, rinsed it, and set it in the dishwasher. Like it was the most normal thing in the world, a stranger washing up after making you breakfast and saving your life.
I watched him, feeling the smallest seed of something I hadn’t dared imagine in years. Hope, maybe. Or just the absence of dread.
Either way, it was enough for now.
The eggs and toast settled in my stomach like ballast, holding me steady against the tidal pull of what came next.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t scared of the day.
Just… adrift, maybe, in the way people get when they realize the map is gone and the only thing left is to make new lines.
After breakfast, Burke insisted on giving me a tour of the house. He said it was “important for guest orientation,” but I think he just didn’t want me alone with my thoughts.
He led me through the living room, pointing out every weird artifact—signed footballs, vintage radio equipment, a taxidermied muskrat named “Captain Fluff”—like he was auditioning for a show on hoarders.
Every room in the place was alive with evidence of people who belonged, people who didn’t expect the world to end every time a door slammed.
I liked the living room best. It had a fireplace with a stone mantle wide enough to sit on, and the couch was big enough for a family of six.
There was a rug that looked like someone had murdered a zebra and then regretted it, so they made it into a centerpiece.
The coffee table was covered in coasters and half-read magazines, but on top, dead center, was a laptop. It wasn’t there last night.
I hovered at the edge of the room, watching Burke watch me. He picked up the laptop, flipped it open, and turned it so the screen glowed with a welcoming, brand-new login prompt.
“Carter set it up this morning,” Burke said, looking almost sheepish. “Said he loaded all your programs and found your school files on the cloud. He’s kind of a freak about digital hygiene.”