Chapter 17
Finn
––––––––
The moment the door slammed behind him, Finn sucked in a breath as if he were drowning. He braced his hands on his knees, trying to force air into his lungs, but each inhale felt too shallow and each exhale too sharp. His heart wouldn't slow. He was going to fucking die of a heart attack.
His thoughts bounced all over the place, unable to settle on what was happening right now. His muscles spasmed, too tight, too hot, too full.
Straightening, he walked. He needed to put distance between himself and the house, between himself and the woman inside it who had turned his world inside out.
With each step, another wave hit. Tightness built up under his skin. He pulled at his shirt. He wanted to stay. He wanted to run. He wanted to fight to release the pressure.
But he couldn't.
Not with her here.
He dragged a hand over his face, trying to steady himself, but his thoughts came faster than he could process. The changes in his body attacked him.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
There was no one around to ask for advice. No one would help him handle Kallie.
A shadow shifted at the edge of his vision. Finn straightened instinctively, shoulders tensing. Moe stepped out from behind the store, wiping his hands on a rag, his expression as blank and calm as ever. He walked toward Finn with slow, even steps, as if nothing in the world had changed.
"Finn." Moe tilted his head. "You look... off."
Finn let out a rough breath, trying to pull himself together. "I'm fine."
Moe studied him with that empty, unblinking stare Everstill had carved into all of them. "She's back."
The words hit Finn like a punch. His jaw tightened. "Yeah."
Moe nodded once, as if confirming a weather report. "Didn't expect that."
Finn's pulse spiked, surprised by how little Moe had to say about the matter. Last time Kallie came, Moe had pestered him for days. He was the only one who thought her appearance was tied to getting the veil to open for the rest of them.
For a while, he suspected Moe was changing like him and starting to feel and remember, but now he wasn't so sure.
Moe tilted his head. "You gonna keep her here this time?"
Finn curled into fists at his sides. He didn't know how to answer.
"I don't know," Finn muttered.
He didn't know what he was allowed to want. Everstill had a way of taking away all their thoughts until they no longer cared what happened. He wanted to protect her, but letting the others see how much Kallie meant to him could backfire.
Moe blinked slowly. "Doesn't matter either way."
That indifference seared Finn right through the chest. Kallie fucking mattered, even if he struggled with what to do with her.
He stepped back, needing to get away from Moe's emptiness before it swallowed him whole. There were things Moe never noticed. The days. The way Finn slipped away, making sure he counted them.
Moe was unaware of the turmoil Finn was going through. Or, he didn't care. He simply nodded again and walked away, returning to whatever task he'd been doing before.
Finn stared at the spot where Moe had been. Kallie had done something to him. He questioned his place in Everstill as the others were content to wake each morning and do the same damn thing. They were getting worse while he was regaining parts of himself.
How was that possible? Could the food that showed up regularly be poisoning them all? Was it the air they breathed that stripped them of their memories?
Or was it Kallie?
Had her arrival weakened the hold Everstill had on him? Was she his way out?
He turned away from the street, the men, and the town that had kept him numb for so long. He walked toward the tree line. She came back for him. He squeezed his eyes shut, his breath shaking. He didn't know how to handle this.
All he knew was that he couldn't go back inside yet.
Finn walked until the tightness in his chest dulled and he could inhale without choking. Then, he changed directions. He needed answers.
He needed someone who'd been here longer than anyone else. Copper.
Finn found him in the restaurant kitchen, standing over a simmering pot on the stove. The place smelled of onions and broth, the same scent that had clung to Copper for as long as Finn had known him. The older man didn't look up when Finn stepped inside.
Finn cleared his throat.
Copper turned off the burner with a slow twist of his wrist. He set the spoon aside, wiped his hands on a towel, and finally looked at Finn with his pale, unreadable eyes. "You look troubled."
Finn swallowed hard. "Has a woman ever walked through the veil before?"
Copper folded the towel neatly, set it on the counter, and leaned back against the stove with a slow, deliberate exhale. "Yeah."
Finn's heart kicked hard in his chest. "What happened?"
Copper's gaze drifted past him, as if he were looking at something far away or checking whether the others could hear him. "She came here a long time ago, before you arrived. She was young and determined, much like the one who arrived today."
Finn's pulse quickened, hope flickering to life before he could stop it.
Copper continued emotionlessly. "She tried to convince Noah to leave with her."
Noah? He hadn't met anyone by that name.
"Did they make it out?" Finn asked, trying and failing to keep the urgency out of his voice.
Copper's expression never changed. "The veil opened."
Finn's chest tightened. Maybe there was a way he could take Kallie out of here. He could go with her. "And?"
Copper looked at him with the same calm, hollow stare. "Noah died trying to go through with her."
Finn exhaled harshly. "And the girl? Did she die?"
Copper shook his head. "She made it through but never came back."
The fragile thoughts that plagued him shattered instantly, leaving a rumbling ache in their place. He stared, waiting for him to correct the details, but Copper simply picked up the towel again and wiped his hands as if ridding himself of the memory.
Finn forced himself to speak. "Why couldn't he leave?"
"Doesn't matter," Copper said. "The veil takes what it wants. Gives what it wants. It doesn't let the men leave."
The truth of it settled deep in his bones. He'd always known Everstill was a trap—a loop, a cage, a place that held onto the men who arrived with a fist that never loosened. But hearing it confirmed, hearing that someone had tried and died for the chance, numbed what was happening to him.
Kallie wasn't his way out of Everstill. Knowing there was a chance of Kallie dying every time she traveled through the veil, he wanted her nowhere near the shadow seam.
He didn't want her to risk her life for a world that had already taken too much from her.
Copper turned back to the stove, relighting the burner with a flick of his wrist. "Best not to think about leaving," he said. "It only hurts."
"How are you able to talk about the past with me when the others can't even remember what they did yesterday?" he asked.
Copper picked up the wooden spoon and hummed, deliberately ignoring the question. He waited several minutes, then left, knowing he wasn't going to get any more answers out of him.
The restaurant door shut behind him. His hands shook as he processed the information. His mind raced with images he didn't want. Kallie stepping toward the veil, Kallie reaching for him, Kallie falling, Kallie dying.
No.
He wouldn't let that happen. He refused to let Kallie pay for coming here with her life.
And as he walked back toward his house, he accepted what he had to do. He would rather stay trapped forever than lose her again.