27. Sterling
Sterling
The second Stan disappears into the dark with Lix at his heel, I sprint. My feet tear across the damp ground. I move fast and hard, straight through the space where Stan tossed the invitation.
But it isn’t the card I grab. It’s the phone. Facedown in the grass, screen still glowing. I scoop it up, flip the cracked hinge just enough to see the pixelated photo.
Elle. Wind in her hair. Leaning close to Stan.
My jaw tightens. It was from weeks ago, before I got to her. Before I pulled her out of hell. So it doesn’t matter if Stan got to her first, got to take a stupid picture that means nothing now. Doesn’t matter.
I pocket the damn thing. She doesn’t need to see it. She doesn’t need to be reminded of who held her first.
Behind me, I hear the sound of her steps as she bends to pick up the card. Stan left it there for a reason.
I see her out of the corner of my eye. Standing under the stars, card clutched in her hand, the foil trim catching the light. Her fingers shake slightly. Her lips are parted, but she hasn’t said a word.
I stay crouched. Steadying my breath. Trying to pull myself together before I face her.
When I stand, I meet her eyes. Pain shoots into my chest. There’s too much in her gaze. Questions over Lix, I’m sure. Hurt over why she can’t remember. Hope of what might come back to her.
I can’t begin to guess what she’ll ask first. So I offer her the only thing I have left that feels honest. “Ask,” I say quietly. “Anything. I’ll tell you the truth.”
Even if it kills me. Even if she walks away. Even if she never wants to see me again, once she knows about everything. Because I’d rather have her hate me for the truth than ever possibly love me for a lie.
She watches me. Long enough that my ribs start to ache. Long enough that every muscle braces for the impact. Then she shakes her head. “No,” she says.
My chest pulls tight. “No?”
She steps forward, the invitation held in her hand like an afterthought.
My brows crease together, confused. Because she’s looking at me like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Like the number Clo gave her—L, fifty—written in red isn’t a warning begging for our attention.
Like Lix’s sudden appearance and Stan’s disappearance haven’t shaken her.
Instead, she stops dead in her tracks, right in front of me. So close I could kiss her. “I told you, didn’t I?” she says, frowning. “I’ve spent too long trying to remember what happened before. The fire. Kys. Everything that broke me.”
I can see her breath fog in the air between us. I don’t see mine. Can’t breathe right now. I don’t remember how to.
“All I need is you,” she whispers.
Then she kisses me. Her mouth moves against mine with heat and need. That small, wrecked sound she makes against my lips knocks the air left out of my lungs.
Elle is never anything I expect. She’s the only thing that I can’t figure out, can’t predict, can’t control myself around.
I kiss her back, but there’s no time to catch up to her intensity. The invitation slips from her fingers, forgotten. Just like everything else. Everything except this moment we have together.
She breathes into me, her gasps soft between kisses. My head spins. Because Elle made her choice. Me.
Elle’s lips brush my mouth, warm and quivering. Her fingers slide up my chest, holding me in place. “Sterling…”
My name on her lips nearly ruins me. I want to kiss her again. I want to lay her down in the grass and lose myself in the way she pulls me closer, in the way she answers every touch with more.
“I need you,” she says softly for words that entirely ruin me.
My lungs seize. “Elle—”
Her lips graze my throat. My words die there. My eyes roll back. “Please, Sterling…”
Fuck. I crush her to me, kissing her again. My hand twists in her hair. The other grips her hip, feeling every part of her against me. I want to give her everything. But right now, I can’t. I tear away from her with a sound that scrapes the back of my throat.
“Not here,” I say, forehead pressed to hers. “We’re not safe.”
She sways, dizzy with heat, pupils blown. “I don’t care—”
“I do.”
That stops her. She blinks up at me, breathing hard.
I brush a kiss to her forehead, tender and apologetic. “There’s one place left. My old hideout. No one knows about it,” I say. “It’s the first place I ever ran to, when I left it all behind.”
She nods. She trusts me. With a sigh of relief, I hold her hand. Then I reach down and pick up the card she dropped. Tuck it into my coat.
I wrap an arm around her and hold her close. “We’re leaving.”
There’s nothing else left to say while I pull her away from this place.
But in that hideout we’re heading to—buried between the hills and forgotten by time—my past waits.
My blunt blades. My old journals. And my first mask.
A carved piece of wood, rough around the edges, dipped in red paint.
A ghost from four years ago. But I’m willing to face it as long as Elle’s by my side.
***
The forest fades behind us, darkened by shadow.
I guide Elle through the brush, flashlight low and narrow, hand firm on hers. We move, steady and silent.
The beam hits a metallic midnight black, half-covered in leaves and mud. The Valkyrie.
Elle slows beside me. “So this is where your car was.”
“Can’t risk being caught,” I say.
I unlock it. Elle climbs in. I take the driver’s seat.
The engine roars to life. As soon as we pull away from the cabin, the pressure starts to lift.
My pulse has been hammering behind my ears.
From this. From her. From Stan vanishing into the night with a man Clo controls.
A man who didn’t raise a weapon when Stan stepped in.
A man barely out of his teens, who I know Elle must have recognized.
Lix. Clo’s shadow. Clo’s new weapon. And now, somehow, Stan’s problem. I don’t know how to explain any of it, and Elle doesn’t ask. She watches the trees blur past her window like they can answer the questions she won’t voice.
I offered her the truth back at the cabin. More than once. She didn’t take it. Never seems to want to. That makes it worse somehow.
The Valkyrie’s tires crunch over brittle gravel, easing into the wooded path I’ve carved out in the past. In the corner of my eye, I see Elle leaning her head against the glass. Her fingers brush the edge of her coat. But she’s still wearing that damn watch Stan gave her.
I caught the tail end of their moment. Her and Stan at the ravine. They sat together, staring at the stars… Doesn’t matter. She’s here now. With me.
The Valkyrie eats the road as we drop toward the ridge. I take us off the path and down into the ravine, where the trees swallow everything. I don’t say a word. Neither does Elle. My hand’s still warm from holding hers. My pulse settles at the realization.
We turn onto the overgrown path, branches crowding above us.
The road barely holds shape, marked only by my memory.
Then we reach the hideout. The shack sits tucked under the ridge, behind stone and pines.
Barely standing. Tin roof rusted through, boards sagging.
Built like a last resort by a kid with nowhere to go.
I kill the engine. Elle sits up, eyes scanning with concern I don’t blame her for. This place isn’t a refuge. It’s a grave I kept trying to fortify.
“This is where I came,” I say, voice rough, “when I needed to disappear.”
She turns toward me. Her eyes are steady. “And now you brought me here.”
“It’s the only place left no one knows about.”
She opens the door, stepping where the dirt meets the sand. I lead her toward the warped porch steps, where the boards creak with every step. Inside, it smells like earth, rust, and memory.
“This is…” her voice trails off while her eyes sweep the small space.
“A shack,” I finish for her. “At best.”
“You lived here?”
“For a while. After I left.”
She goes quiet. Her gaze lands on the dark corners of the room. Nothing about the thin wooden walls says warmth. It’s made for function. For survival.
“Sterling,” she says, reaching for my arm, “why does it feel like you brought me into your past?”
I breathe through it. “Because I did.”
Her lips touch my shoulder, light and steady. “Then I’ll remember this place,” she whispers. “Every part of it. And we’ll make it ours.”
Her words settle in deep. The space doesn’t feel so haunted anymore.
The door groans, slowly shutting behind us. Dust swirls in the dim light that bleeds through the cracked boards. Everything holds still, quiet enough to hear my heartbeat, loud and heavy.
Elle’s hand slips under my jacket. I barely process it.
She’s on me the second the lock clicks. Her fingers in my hair.
Mouth against mine. Urgent and fierce. She doesn’t give me a second to pull away.
She fists my shirt and tugs hard, grounding herself into me like I might disappear if she doesn’t.
I let her take control. I always will.
I grip her waist and turn her, pressing her against the wall. The boards are rough, the air’s cold. But she’s burning. She’s heat and motion, and I can’t stop chasing her.
“I thought you were going to die,” she whispers shakily against my mouth.
I freeze for a second. She was worried about me. She cares. For some reason, she fucking cares about me. I pull her closer. “I’m not going anywhere,” I growl low. “Unless you tell me to.”
She kisses me harder. Her mouth opens, hungry. I deepen it, one hand running up her spine. She’s here. She wants this. She wants me.
“Sterling,” she breathes when I drag my mouth to her throat. “More. Please.”
Her voice shakes, almost shy. But her body arches into mine, nothing tentative about it. I groan, rough and raw. My hands move under her shirt, brushing the line of her waist, the dip of her back.