Chapter Ten
~ Newton ~
The next few hours were a master class in creative paranoia, starring yours truly as the understudy for “Anxiety, Personified.” I wore the part well. If there’d been a Tony for “Most Neurotic Use of a Bedroom,” I’d have sweeped.
Knox left me in his room with explicit instructions—“don’t let anyone but me in, even if they look friendly”—and a promise that he’d be back before midnight.
His last move was to press a pocket knife into my hand, which I promptly dropped onto the bed and then spent the next three minutes inspecting for blood, fingerprints, or evidence of previous crimes.
There wasn’t any. The thing was so clean I could see my own reflection in the blade, which was, frankly, not helpful.
I paced. Back and forth. Then diagonally, just to spice things up. The room was big enough to allow it, but not so big that I couldn’t see every exit at once.
The dresser was still open from when I’d rummaged for sweatpants. Knox’s boots—size “titanic”—sat at attention by the door, laces coiled like snakes.
The only window faced west, which meant the dying sun shot streaks of orange across the far wall and made everything look even more like a crime scene.
I tried to sit on the bed, but the second my ass hit the mattress, I shot back up. I wasn’t tired. I was hyperaware, a word I’d once seen in a psychology textbook and assumed was just a polite way of saying “permanently fucked.”
I did a perimeter check of the room. Twice. Door locked? Yes. Window closed? Check. Knife still on the bed? Check, and also, why was I trusted with a knife, who knew, not me. My father always said I was the least reliable of his spawn, and not even in an affectionate way.
I slumped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The light fixture was a bare bulb, slightly askew, the kind of thing you’d find in a rural meth lab or a garage. But the ceiling itself was clean. No cobwebs, no secret cameras, no evidence of prior violence.
This was a good sign.
I found myself twisting the corner of Knox’s pillow in my hands, rolling it over and over like a lucky charm.
The fabric was rough, probably some kind of tactical cotton, and smelled like soap and smoke and a little bit of engine oil.
I pressed it to my face and inhaled, which was, on the one hand, pathetic, and on the other, deeply comforting.
The nervous energy had to go somewhere, so my body defaulted to cycling through every stupid trick I’d ever developed since third grade. I tugged at my socks—one duck, one frog, mismatched because I’d packed in a panic and, if we’re honest, I liked it that way.
I clicked the pen in my pocket until I realized I was one click away from mental collapse. I bit the inside of my cheek until the taste of iron made me stop.
Knox’s bed was big. Like, designed-for-two-adults big, which was both convenient and terrifying, given my current fixation on what we’d done earlier in the day.
My brain was very invested in replaying that memory with full sensory accompaniment—the weight of Knox’s arms, the noise he made when he came, the way he’d held me after like he was daring the universe to take me back.
I physically shook my head to clear it. This was not the time for sexual nostalgia. This was the time for threat assessment.
I swung my legs off the bed and stood, arms crossed, then uncrossed, then crossed again. I thought about my father. I thought about Luther, the golden child, the one who’d been sent to “bring me home” more times than I could count.
I knew my family—they were about as subtle as a rhinoceros in a china shop and twice as destructive. My father didn’t like being told no, and he used Luther as his personal attack dog to keep me in line.
Every time I’d tried to get away, it had ended in bruises, lectures, and an envelope of hush money that never made it past the mailbox. I’d once tried to spend it on a bus ticket out of state, but ended up giving it to the first charity that asked.
Even my rebellion was pitiful.
I peeked through the window, careful not to disturb the curtain.
The McKenzie property stretched for acres, but every inch was visible in the moonlight.
The old barn. The line of pickup trucks.
The flagpole, listing at a permanent forty-degree angle, like it had fought the wind too long and finally given up.
There were no cars on the drive, but that didn’t mean anything. My father wouldn’t show up with sirens. He’d send Luther first, to test the perimeter, see if I’d let him in. If that failed, he’d escalate.
I paced to the closet, opened it, and counted the shirts again. I don’t know why I did that. Knox only wore maybe four of them, but the closet was stuffed—plaid, denim, a few button-downs that looked like they’d come straight off the set of a low-budget western.
I touched each one, running my fingers over the seams. It was grounding. The same way people counted their steps or recited the periodic table to stave off panic, I cataloged shirts.
It was a system.
Halfway through the closet, my mind wandered back to Knox.
To the way he’d looked at me at dinner, like I was some rare bird he was afraid might break if he held it wrong.
The way he’d barked at his brothers and then turned around and checked if I was okay.
The way his hands dwarfed my own, but when they touched me, it was never too much, never more than I could handle.
God. Focus, Newt.
I forced myself to the mirror. I looked… well, alive. My bruises were almost gone, just yellow shadows under my skin. The scar on my cheek was healing. My hair looked like it had been styled by a small animal, which was fine; the McKenzies weren’t exactly a high-glamour bunch.
I squared my shoulders and tried to look tough. The effect was undercut by the fact that I was still wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon fox on it, but at least I could pretend.
“Get it together,” I muttered. “You survived worse.”
Then, immediately, I failed to get it together, because a memory hit me so hard it nearly buckled my knees: Knox, standing at the foot of the bed, shirtless, arms crossed, that tattoo of the globe and anchor stark on his skin.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he’d said. “Not unless you decide to.”
No one had ever given me a choice before.
I wrapped my arms around myself, then realized it was a dumb gesture and tried to play it off by reaching for one of Knox’s shirts, the one he’d left draped on the chair.
I picked it up, breathed in, and let myself imagine, just for a second, that I could stay here.
That the world might actually let me have something good.
I put the shirt on. It hung to my knees. It was soft, and smelled like cedar and fire and the faintest hint of motor oil.
I was still scared, but at least I was scared in style.
I checked the door again—still locked—and flopped onto the bed, clutching Knox’s pillow to my chest. My heart was beating like a hummingbird’s, but I could finally breathe.
Just a little.
If they came for me, I’d be ready. I had a knife, a lock, and the stubbornness of an entire family tree backing me up. Plus, I looked incredible in plaid.
It would have to be enough.
I squeezed my eyes shut, breathed in Knox’s scent, and waited for whatever came next. But the thing nobody tells you about hiding out in a farmhouse at night is that darkness isn’t silent.
It’s the opposite.
As soon as the sun dropped, the world came alive in stereo—frogs in the ditches, something small and desperate chewing at the walls, the wild riot of cicadas all rising and falling in a sound that felt like it could shake the house apart.
In town, night was a vacuum. Here, it was a battlefield, every soldier accounted for, every platoon screaming its presence.
I listened from the bed as long as I could, but eventually my skin started crawling with the need to move, to not be a sitting duck in a locked room. So I did the stupidest thing I could have done and crept out of the bedroom, down the hall, down the stairs, and then out onto the porch.
The wood was cold under my feet. I went barefoot, because the socks felt too loud on the old floors and I wasn’t about to wake the entire McKenzie army just so they could watch me fidget.
The porch swing was still swaying from where Harlow had sat earlier, probably thinking about the weather, or crops, or something only Harlow would consider a pressing issue when his house was on the verge of siege.
I climbed on, knees up, and let the swing rock me, one slow push at a time. The creak of the chain was so familiar it barely registered as noise. I wrapped Knox’s flannel around myself twice, sleeves hanging past my fingers, and looked out over the yard.
The moon was full, or close enough. It lit up the old barn and made the shadows stretch all the way to the fence line.
I tried to spot movement, but the only thing out there was the wind, tugging at the loose tarp on the hay bales.
The rest of the world—the river, the trees, the mountains in the far distance—was painted in grayscale.
It didn’t look like a fortress, but I knew it was.
I took inventory of everything that made this place different from the Bridger house, where I’d grown up trying to be as invisible as possible.
There, night was for locking doors and triple-checking that nobody had followed you up the drive.
Here, you could see every approach, every possible vector of attack, and the only thing waiting for you was maybe a stubborn horse or a raccoon with a death wish.
I catalogued the things I liked about the McKenzie property. The porch swing. The sound of Knox’s boots on gravel at sunrise. The way sunlight, in the morning, turned the kitchen table into a spotlight where you could eat and be seen, even if you didn’t have anything interesting to say.
The fact that nobody in this house ever asked me to justify my existence, or tried to buy my silence with crisp bills and a one-way train ticket.
I wondered, for a moment, if I’d ever feel like I deserved to stay.
Something crashed in the field—a deer, probably, or a possum being too ambitious—and my whole body went rigid. I was already on high alert, but this sent me straight into threat-mode.
I waited, heart pounding, for the follow-up sound—a car engine, a human voice, anything that would mean trouble… Nothing. Just the regular night, loud and messy and indifferent to my fear.
I leaned back, head against the chain, and let the swing go until the momentum carried me forward and back with just the weight of my body. It felt almost normal, like any summer night before everything had gone to hell.
I thought about Knox, about the way he’d looked at me when he said, “You’re with me.” He’d said it like it was an order, like he was so used to giving commands that the universe would just obey out of habit.
I wanted to believe it.
More than anything, I wanted that to be true.
I tried to imagine what it would be like if my father showed up in the middle of the night. Would I run? Would I fight? The answer depended on whether Knox was beside me or if I was alone.
But I’d be damned if I let my father take this away from me, too.
The air was cold and smelled like cut grass and woodsmoke, the kind of night that would have been perfect for stargazing if my brain wasn’t so crowded with ghosts. I hugged my knees and buried my face in the sleeve of Knox’s shirt, inhaling the cedar-smoke-vanilla blend that was him, distilled.
My hands had finally stopped shaking.
The porch swing groaned as I stood, and I paused at the edge of the steps, squinting into the dark one last time before heading inside.
The house was dead quiet, all the lights off except for the faint glow from the kitchen nightlight, the kind you leave on for children or people who aren’t used to feeling safe.
I closed the door behind me, locked it, and padded back upstairs. Knox’s room felt like a bunker. I shut the door, clicked the lock, and crawled under the covers, fully dressed and still clutching his shirt to my chest.
I didn’t bother with the knife. I’d figured out by now that my best defense wasn’t sharp, it was stubborn.
I lay on my side, staring at the shadowed outline of the dresser. In my head, I repeated all the names of the men who’d told me I didn’t belong, the teachers and uncles and parole officers who’d tried to make me smaller.
I pictured each one, then replaced their voice with Knox’s. The effect was immediate. The fear didn’t vanish, but it faded, replaced by something bigger and louder.
Hope, maybe, or just the knowledge that for the first time, I had someone who would fight for me, and not because it was their job or obligation.
I let myself believe it. Just for a second.
The house shifted and creaked, but nothing came through the door. I pressed my face to the pillow, breathed in deep, and waited for dawn. Tomorrow would be a war. But tonight, I’d hold this little peace as long as I could.