Chapter 16 #2
“I’m not fighting,” I answer, even though we both know that’s not true.
“You are,” he says, not pushing it, just stating it. “You’ve been fighting since the second you got here.”
I shake my head, but there’s no real force behind it. “That’s how I keep things from getting messy.”
“And how’s that working for you?” he asks again, softer this time, like he already knows the answer and isn’t trying to trap me into saying it.
I let out a breath, slower than I mean to.
“It worked,” I say. “For a long time, it worked.”
It comes out in past tense, and I hear it the same second he does.
His gaze shifts, not surprised, not satisfied, just… taking it in.
“What changed?” he asks.
I should shut that down and give him something simple, something clean that doesn’t open the door any wider than it already is, but instead I hear myself answer.
“You,” I say.
The word lands between us, heavier than anything else in the room.
I don’t take it back.
I don’t soften it.
Because it’s true, and I’m too tired to pretend it isn’t.
His jaw tightens just slightly, not from anger, not from surprise, but from something deeper that he’s trying to hold steady.
“That’s not what I meant,” he says.
“I know,” I answer. “But it’s still the answer.”
Silence stretches again, but it’s different now, not something we’re hiding behind, something we’re standing in.
“I didn’t plan for this,” I add after a second, my voice quieter now, more honest than I’ve let it be since I walked through the door. “Any of it. Not the land, not the mess tied to it, and definitely not…”
I stop myself before I finish that sentence.
Not him, but we both hear it anyway.
“You don’t have to plan everything,” he says.
“I do,” I shoot back, the edge slipping in before I can stop it. “That’s how I keep her safe.”
“And I’m not asking you to stop doing that,” he says. “I’m asking you to let her father help you do it.”
“That’s not simple.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
I look at him then, really look, at the way he’s holding himself back just enough, giving me room without stepping out of it, steady in a way that doesn’t feel temporary or conditional.
That’s the part that cracks something open.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I admit, the words quieter than anything I’ve said tonight.
He nods once, like that doesn’t surprise him at all. “Then don’t.”
I frown slightly. “That’s not helpful.”
“It is,” he says. “Because you don’t have to figure it all out tonight. You just have to stop running from it long enough to see what it is.”
There’s no demand or expectation in it, just space.
And for the first time since I got here, that space doesn’t feel like something I have to fill or escape from.
It feels like something I can stand in.
I lean back against the counter behind me, not closing the distance, but not putting more between us either, and let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“That’s a dangerous suggestion,” I say quietly.
He almost smiles this time. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”
And that’s it, the moment something shifts, not everything or all at once, but enough.
Enough that I don’t feel the need to step back.
Enough that the space between us doesn’t feel like something I have to protect anymore.
Enough that when Hadley calls my name from down the hall a second later, I don’t jump, I just push off the counter and go, steady instead of braced.
And as I pass him, close enough to feel the heat of him without touching, I realize something I didn’t expect to feel this soon.
I’m not trying to hold the line the same way anymore.
And that might be the biggest shift of all.
I make it halfway down the hall before something in me tightens again, not sharp, not sudden, just a quiet instinct pulling at the back of my awareness like something isn’t sitting right anymore.
Hadley’s voice is still ahead of me, softer now, talking to herself as she moves between rooms, but there’s another sound layered under it that doesn’t belong.
A shift.
Outside.
I slow without thinking, my hand brushing the wall as I listen harder, trying to separate what’s normal from what isn’t.
The house settles.
Wood creaks.
Wind moves along the porch.
And then—
A dull thud.
Not loud.
Not accidental.
Something hitting wood with weight behind it.
My chest tightens instantly.
“Hadley,” I call, keeping my voice steady even as everything in me sharpens.
“I’m in here!” she calls back, too far down the hall for me to see her yet.
Another sound follows, closer this time, something dragging or scraping just outside the front of the house, and every instinct I have flips from unease to certainty.
We’re not alone.
I turn fast, moving back toward the main room, and Jace is already there, his posture changed, every line of him alert and focused in a way that tells me he heard it too.
“What was that?” I ask, even though I already know the answer isn’t going to be something simple.
“Stay here,” he says, low and controlled, already moving toward the front of the house.
“Don’t—”
He stops just long enough to look back at me, something hard and certain in his eyes that shuts down the rest of what I was about to say.
“Get her,” he adds. “Now.”
That’s enough.
I turn and move down the hall, faster this time, my pulse picking up as I reach Hadley and take her hand without explaining, pulling her back toward the main room.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice small now, picking up on the shift even if she doesn’t understand it.
“Nothing,” I say automatically, even as my grip tightens. “Just stay with me.”
By the time we reach the edge of the living room, the front door is already open.
Cold air cuts into the room.
The porch swing moves harder now, creaking with the wind or something else that passed too close to it.
And Jace stands just outside the threshold, looking out into the dark like he’s already tracking something I can’t see.
“What is it?” I ask, keeping Hadley behind me now.
He doesn’t answer right away.
That’s what scares me.
Because Jace always has an answer.
Finally, he steps back inside, his gaze still fixed past me toward the front of the property.
“Someone was here,” he says.
Not maybe or unsure, but certain.
My stomach drops.
“Where?”
He gestures toward the porch. “Close enough to touch the house.”
Hadley shifts behind me, her fingers tightening in my shirt, and I pull her closer without thinking, my own pulse loud enough now that it’s hard to hear anything else.
“Did you see them?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “But they weren’t trying to hide the noise.”
The thought hits hard and immediate, a warning that isn’t subtle or careful but completely intentional.
I glance toward the open door, toward the darkness just beyond the porch light, and for the first time since we walked into this house…
it doesn’t feel like shelter anymore, it feels exposed.
Like we just stepped into something that was already waiting.
And somewhere out there, just beyond the reach of the light—
Someone knows exactly where we are.