Chapter Sixteen #2
Stefan leads the way, his wife at his side, Surry tucked close under his arm.
“We’ve been watchin’ the feeds o’ the compound since ye left,” he rumbles.
“They found the lockroom wi’ their bloody heat gun—saw the cold shape o’ the door plain as day.
Tore up everythin’ they could touch, but we’ve still a bit o’ the network left runnin’. Praise be ye left when ye did.”
“What now?” I ask. “You have a plan?”
“Aye,” he says. “But I’ll be needin’ you an’ yer brothers t’ help. Are they willin’?”
Josh answers before I can. “Fuck yeah, we’re in.”
I grin at him. That’s my brother. Always loud, always loyal.
A man in his fifties jogs over with mugs on a tray. “Tea an’ coffee,” he says cheerfully. “Fuel for the living.” The mugs are mismatched, chipped in a way that looks like love, not neglect. Bridget snatches a tea like it owed her money.
“Well, it’s nearly six in the mornin’,” Stefan starts.
“Nearly seven,” Sabrina corrects, elbowing him with a small smile on her face.
He sighs before smiling back at his wife. “Grand so,” he says. “We’ll talk the details after breakfast.”
We file into the waiting sedans. The short drive to the O’Briens’ home is quiet, the sound of gravel under the tires and distant waves our only soundtrack.
The house rises out of the mist like something out of an old story—modern lines wrapped in ivy, walls of glass and stone.
A pair of stone seals flank the entrance, noses lifted as if scenting weather.
Inside, marble floors and pale walls lined with flowers lead us through warm light and quiet elegance.
The air smells like wood smoke and lemon oil, like someone made morning on purpose.
We pass a long table already half-set—bowls of berries, a platter of smoked fish, soda bread cooling on racks, butter in crocks. A radio murmurs in the kitchen: some local radio host talking under the clatter of plates. Somewhere deeper in the house a clock chimes the hour, soft as breath.
Sabrina turns to Surry. “Ye know where yer room is, a stór. Show the others where ta go.”
“Yes, Mama.” They squeeze hands before Surry turns to me and grabs my own, leading me and the others upstairs.
“Oi,” Josh whispers as we climb, taking in the carved banister, the way the hall opens to a library balcony. “If I get lost, do I yell ‘Marco’ or ‘O’Brien’?”
“Ye yell ‘Bridget!’” Bridget answers without looking back. “An’ I appear.”
Once we get to the top, we peel off in pairs.
Josh and Juniper disappear into a guest room, doors closing with a hush only old houses know.
Alisha ghosts down another hallway—probably hunting for Sam’s last location via instinct and sheer stubbornness.
Richie and Hazel vanish behind two more doors with matching tired smiles.
Soon it’s just me and Surry left in the hall.
“This one’s mine,” she says, stopping in front of a door. Then, with a teasing tilt of her head, “You staying with me or do you need a babysitter?”
I smirk. “I was thinking Josh—”
She elbows me in the ribs, and I laugh, following her inside.
Her room is everything I expected—soft sage walls, one black accent wall covered in art, and a bed big enough for three people, dressed in emerald green and shadow.
A glass door opens to a balcony where you can hear the sea argue with the shore.
There’s a stack of old books on the nightstand with a sprig of dried heather tucked between them.
It smells like lavender and salt. Like her.
Surry toes off her shoes and pulls the elastic from her braid; her hair falls like a flag dropping to half-mast. We change quietly—her removing everything, while I slip off all my clothes minus my boxers since we didn’t have time to grab anything.
We crawl under the covers preparing for a well-deserved nap, and for the first time in days, my body remembers what rest feels like.
I pull her close, her head under my chin, her breath warm against my chest.
“Sleep good,” I whisper into the darkness.
“You too,” she answers me also in a hushed tone, as if we spoke any louder, we would be found out by the evil we’re running from.
“Mo chroí,” I add without thinking—my heart. I’ve been looking into Gaelic so I could talk more with her dad, but also for more ways to tell her how I feel about her. It earns me a sleepy squeeze to the ribs.
That’s the last thing I remember before sleep takes me.
The dream starts softly. Then it turns.
I’m back in the compound. Smoke everywhere.
The sound of gunfire echoing down hallways that shouldn’t exist. I can’t find her.
Surry’s voice calls my name, sharp and panicked, but every time I turn toward it, she’s farther away.
Gavin’s there—always just ahead, dragging her by the arm, his grin carved out of cruelty.
I run, but my legs feel heavy, like the air’s turned to tar.
I reach for her, fingertips brushing hers just as he pulls her through a doorway that slams shut like a vault.
“Not again,” I choke out, pounding my fists against steel. “Not again.”
I hear my mother’s scream behind it—the same sound I heard when I was eight, hiding in a closet while a man beat her nearly to death. The same helpless, suffocating silence when I was twenty-five, when another man accomplished the job.
I can’t save her either.
When I wake, I’m gasping. The room’s dark, quiet except for the sound of Surry breathing beside me, her hand still resting on my chest like an anchor. I stare at the ceiling until my pulse slows. It’s just a dream. Just a dream. But my body doesn’t believe it.
The clock on her desk glows 9:00 a.m. Wind scrapes across the balcony rail, smelling of kelp and cold sunlight. Somewhere lower in the house, a kettle clicks off and someone laughs—Bridget, by the music of it.
I slide out of bed carefully, grab my phone, and slip into the adjoined bathroom en suite.
The rug covering tile is soft under my feet.
A painting of a storm at sea watches me pass like it has opinions.
I make my way toward the sink to wash my face when I’m stopped dead in my tracks—the message waiting on my screen from Corver is equally good news and danger rolled into one.
I stare at it for a long moment. The words are simple. The implications aren’t. It’s a choice wrapped in a threat, a time stamped demand pretending to be mercy. The kind of thing a coward sends when he wants to sound like God.
I look back at the closed bedroom door, at the woman sleeping inside.
“Not yet,” I whisper.
I shoot Corver a reply telling him to wait until I talk to Stefan, then I tuck the phone into my palm like a blade and head for the balcony.
The door slides open on oiled rails; the morning hits my face clean and cold.
Pine sap, wet stone, the promise of rain.
Out past the cove, a ferry carves a neat white wake through pewter water, ordinary people crossing from one piece of their lives to another like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
I make a silent vow to the horizon: I will build her ordinary. I will carve it out of days if I have to, out of my bones if that’s the cost. Let him bring the storm. We’ve learned how to fly through worse.