Chapter 13 Salem
THIRTEEN
SALEM
The night feels different now. Not because anything’s changed about Rainmaker—the same soft quiet settles over everything, the same thick, warm air that still feels too safe, almost borrowed—but because I’m the one who’s different. My body knows it. My nerves won’t let me forget.
After Magnolia Ridge, after the string lights on the patio and the easy laughter that felt so good until it didn’t.
Ever since Ozzy saw that white van sitting there at the curb like a bad omen, windows blacked out, engine idling low.
Ever since, my skin’s been tuned to every sound.
Every small creak in the house sends my pulse kicking.
A branch scrapes the siding in the wind and my brain translates it instantly: someone testing the window latches, someone breathing too close.
Ozzy moves through the safehouse the way he always does when things get tight—methodical, almost ritualistic.
Front door deadbolt, back door chain, every window latch checked twice, then the cameras on the tablet, thumb scrolling slow across the feeds.
He’s done this loop so many times it looks like muscle memory, like safety isn’t something you hope for; it’s something you carve out again and again with your hands.
I’m curled on the couch, blanket dragged up to my chin like armor, trying to fake calm. Trying to talk my heart down from its stupid sprint. The TV murmurs low in the background. It’s a cooking show nobody’s really watching, just some noise to fill the space.
Ozzy finishes the last sweep and comes back into the living room.
His eyes find me first, the same quick, sharp scan he gives every corner of the house, every shadow.
Then something in his face eases. The hard line of his mouth softens, his shoulders drop maybe half an inch.
It’s small, but it’s permission. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“Tea helped?” he asks.
I nod. “A little.”
He crouches in front of me again, like he did earlier, like he’s learned I don’t do well with him towering. “Talk to me.”
I swallow, staring into my mug like it might have answers. “I didn’t like it.”
“The van?” His voice is calm, but I hear the bite under it.
I nod again. “It felt like—” My throat tightens. “Like it could happen again. Like I’m never really safe.”
Ozzy’s jaw flexes. He looks like he wants to punch something. The wall. The air. The entire concept of men who take girls.
He reaches out slowly, giving me time to flinch if I need it, and rests his hand over mine. It’s warm, heavy, and steady. “You’re safe here,” he says.
I want to believe him. I do believe him, I think. As much as I can believe anyone. But the fear doesn’t vanish just because someone says the words. Fear’s a parasite. It lives in your muscles. Your stomach. Your throat. It nests. I squeeze his fingers back without thinking.
Ozzy’s gaze drops to the contact, then lifts to my face. Something flickers there. His eyes darken and my heart pounds loudly in my chest.
He pulls his hand away first, like he’s reminding himself of rules only he knows. “Let’s get you to bed,” he says, voice rough.
My stomach flips. Because bed has become a loaded word for me. Bed is where I woke up last time with my nails digging into his shirt, desperate for something solid. Bed is where I realized how easy it is to need him. Bed is where my body has started to… want things I’m not sure I’m allowed to want.
I stand and follow him down the hall, trying to ignore the way the lights throw soft shadows, trying to ignore the way my bare feet sound too loud against the wood floor.
Ozzy stops at my bedroom door and turns like he’s about to head back to the living room. Like he’ll take the couch again, like he’ll give me space, like he’ll do the honorable thing. The first night we were here he slept in bed with me. But since then, he’s been on the couch.
However, my chest tightens at the thought of being alone in that room tonight. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts. Alone with the creaks and wind and branches and memories.
The words come out before I can stop them. “Ozzy.”
He pauses, back still to me. “Yeah?”
My hands twist together. My voice is small. “Can you… sleep in here?”
He turns slowly. His face is unreadable for a second. Then his brows knit, not with annoyance. It’s more like he’s thinking through a decision with consequences. All the things he carries in his head that I don’t even know about.
I rush to explain, cheeks burning. “I’m not—I’m not trying to be weird. I just… I don’t want to be alone tonight. We’re adults. It’s just… I feel safer with you.”
Ozzy’s throat works. He takes a step closer. “You’re not being weird.”
I blink. “I’m not?”
“No,” he says, voice lower. “You’re being honest.”
My chest aches at that.
Ozzy’s gaze holds mine. Then he nods. “Okay.”
Relief hits me so hard my knees almost go soft.
He steps past me into the room, calm and purposeful, like he’s done this before too—like he knows how to be someone’s safety without making it about himself.
I hover by the door while he checks the window latch, the closet, the corners.
Not because he thinks something’s inside.
Because he knows my brain might. Then he looks at me. “You want the lights off or low?”
“Low,” I whisper.
Ozzy leaves the bedside lamp on and the rest dark, a gentle glow pooling over the quilt.
I change into a long t-shirt and shorts, hands shaking a little as I pull the fabric down. I’m nervous. I don’t know why. I’ve technically already slept in the bed with him. However, that was different. I’d had a nightmare and he held me until I fell back asleep. This is different.
When I turn, Ozzy is already in sweatpants, shirtless, and my brain short-circuits.
Because he’s… Ozzy. Tall. Built. Tattoos along his forearm I haven’t traced yet but I want to. His mohawk is down now, messy from the day, and he looks less like a weapon and more like a man.
A man in my bedroom. My throat goes dry.
His eyes catch mine, and then slide away fast, like he’s forcing himself not to linger. “Get in,” he says, voice lower now, scraped raw at the edges. “I’ll—” He jerks his chin toward the far side of the bed. “I’ll stay over there. Promise.”
My heart stumbles, then kicks hard against my ribs.
I nod once, mouth too dry to answer, and crawl onto the mattress.
The sheets are cool against my skin, but I barely feel them.
I slide under the covers and fix my stare on the ceiling fan, willing my breathing to even out, willing my body to stop noticing every inch of space between us.
Ozzy doesn’t move right away. He stands at the edge of the bed for a long beat—long enough that I start counting his breaths—then the mattress dips under his weight.
He settles on his side, careful, deliberate, leaving a strip of empty sheet between us like a line drawn in the sand. It might as well not exist.
Heat rolls off him anyway. Thick, living heat that finds me across the gap, seeping under the blanket, brushing my bare arm, my hip, the small of my back.
I can feel the shape of him without looking.
I feel the long line of his body, the way his shoulder rises a little higher than mine, the faint rhythm of his chest moving slower than mine.
The house gives one low creak. It’s nothing but the old wood settling, or wind, or something else.
My whole body flinches, a sharp, involuntary jerk that yanks the sheet tight across my chest.
Ozzy turns instantly. Not just his head, but his whole upper body shifts toward me, fast and instinctive, like he’s been waiting for the excuse. “Hey,” he says, voice quiet but rough, close enough now that I feel the word more than hear it.
I swallow against the sudden knot in my throat. “Sorry,” I manage, barely above a whisper. My pulse is loud in my ears, drowning everything else.
He doesn’t move back. Doesn’t say anything for a second. Just watches me in the dim light, eyes dark and steady, the careful distance between us feeling thinner by the heartbeat.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he murmurs finally. “Not to me.”
The air between us thickens, charged and warm, like the moment before a storm breaks. I don’t dare move. Neither does he.
I hesitate for one heartbeat, and then I scoot closer, inch by inch, like I’m crossing a line I’ve been staring at for too long.
Ozzy exhales, a deep sound that turns into a low groan when my hip presses against his. It’s not a groan of annoyance. It’s… something else. Something that makes heat pool in my stomach. My breath catches.
Ozzy’s arm slides around me carefully, pulling me into his chest. His hand settles on my back, firm and steady, and his other hand cups my shoulder like he’s anchoring me.
I melt.
Not the fragile, crumbling kind of melt. Not weak. It’s relief, pure and bone-deep, the way a body that’s been braced for impact finally gets the all-clear.
Every tight muscle in my shoulders unclenches at once.
My spine softens against the mattress like it’s remembering how to curve instead of lock.
The air I’ve been holding hostage in my lungs rushes out in a long, shaky exhale that I don’t even try to hide.
My fingers loosen their death grip on the edge of the blanket as my toes uncurl.
Heat blooms low in my belly. It’s not panic anymore, but something warmer, heavier, something that spreads like sunlight hitting skin after too long in the cold.
His chest rises and falls against my cheek. His heartbeat is steady. His skin is warm.
I feel safe. I close my eyes, letting myself sink into it. But safety is dangerous too, because it makes me want more. My brain whispers the truth I don’t want to admit: I want him.
The laugh. The sarcasm. The way he watches me like I’m worth guarding. And that want hurts, because it feels impossible. Because I know how this ends.