Chapter 95 Harper
Harper
By the second night without word, the silence wasn’t just heavy—it was suffocating.
I sat cross-legged on the floor near the fire, my notebook open in my lap, though the page was still blank. I’d thought writing might calm me, might steady the storm inside, but the pen never touched paper.
Because all I could think about was Carter.
The way his jaw had tightened when he said they’d move Sable at dawn. The steel in his eyes when he pressed the rifle into the man’s back. The brief brush of his hand against mine before he left, quick and fierce, like he’d poured a promise into that one touch.
I held on to that touch now, replaying it over and over.
But underneath it was the gnawing truth: Redwood wasn’t just a name anymore. It was real. Alive. A network strong enough to send men into the mountains after us. And Carter had walked straight into their fire with nothing but his team, his rifle, and his vow to me.
I curled forward, pressing my forehead to my knees. “Come back to me,” I whispered into the folds of my shirt. “I don’t care how broken, how bloodied. Just come back.”
The words cracked, but saying them out loud steadied me somehow.
Because I couldn’t just be the woman who waited in silence, drowning in fear. I had to be the woman he’d see when he walked back through that door—the one strong enough to stand at his side, no matter what truths he carried with him.
I lifted my head, staring at the blank page. Slowly, I put the pen down and wrote one word in the center:
Together.
It wasn’t much. But it was enough to remind me who we were, what we’d promised each other.
And as the fire burned low, I clung to that word like it was a lifeline.
Because if Redwood wanted to break us, they’d learn what it meant to fight two hearts bound to the same vow.