Epilogue
WHIZ
Six months later…
Moving day doesn’t feel like a big moment the way I expected it might.
There’s no clear shift where everything suddenly clicks into place, no instant sense of this is the start of something new.
Instead, it comes together in pieces—boxes stacked near the door, boots dragging dirt across the floor, the low hum of engines outside while the guys haul the last of my shit across the property. It’s practical. Loud. Messy.
It feels real.
“Didn’t realize you owned this much crap,” Zombie mutters as he drops another box by the wall, wiping his hands like the effort personally offended him.
“I don’t,” I shoot back, shifting one of the heavier bins into place. “You’re just out of shape.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” he snorts. “You pack like you’re moving across the country, not across a damn yard.”
From across the room, Zoey laughs, already reorganizing things I didn’t even realize needed organizing. “To be fair, you do own a lot of pointless stuff.”
“It’s not pointless,” I mutter.
“It absolutely is,” she replies without missing a beat. “Also, these go in the bedroom, not the main room.”
She gestures toward a box I’d just set down, and I shake my head but move it anyway.
That’s the difference.
Six months ago, this place was barely anything.
Now, it’s hers.
Or… ours, I guess.
The cabin doesn’t look anything like it did when she first moved in.
Back then it was sparse—functional, sure, but empty in a way that made it feel like it didn’t belong to anyone.
Now there’s furniture that actually fits the space, rugs soft enough to make the place feel lived-in, small things that don’t have a purpose beyond making it feel like a home.
She made it that way.
And if I’m being honest… I helped.
Not that I admitted how much I liked doing it.
“You don’t get to complain about the couch,” she says now, glancing over at me like she can read my thoughts. “You picked it.”
“I didn’t pick it,” I reply automatically. “I just didn’t hate it.”
“That’s basically the same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
She just smiles at me like she knows better.
And yeah… she probably does.
“Alright, that’s the last of it,” Quake says, stepping back and taking in the room like he’s checking for structural flaws. “You’re officially moved in.”
“Don’t make it sound permanent,” I mutter.
“Too late,” Copper calls from the doorway. “You already helped decorate. There’s no coming back from that.”
A few of them chuckle at that.
“Give it a month,” Zombie adds. “He’ll have throw pillows.”
“Get out,” Zoey says, laughing as she pushes toward them. “All of you. You’ve done enough damage for one day.”
They don’t argue, but they don’t leave immediately either. There’s always that extra few minutes—more jokes, more comments, more not-so-subtle digs about how I somehow went from sleeping wherever I landed to actually living somewhere.
Eventually, though, they file out.
The door shuts behind them.
And the silence that follows feels different.
I drop down onto the couch, stretching out slightly, letting the quiet settle in for the first time all day. Zoey joins me after a second, sinking into the cushions with a long exhale as she leans her head against my shoulder.
“Okay,” she mutters. “That was exhausting.”
“You didn’t have to manage all that,” I say, glancing down at her.
“Yes, I did,” she replies immediately. “Because otherwise everything would be in the wrong place and you’d never fix it.”
“That’s a bold assumption.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
I huff out a quiet breath, letting that go.
She’s not wrong.
For a while, we sit there without talking, just settling into it—the space, the moment, the weight of something that’s been building over the last six months finally landing somewhere steady.
A lot’s changed.
We handled the gang.
That wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t clean, but it got done.
Chapter by chapter, piece by piece, we tracked them down and took out everything they thought they were building before it ever had a chance to take hold.
There’s no one left pushing into our territory now.
No one dumb enough to try again anytime soon.
That threat’s gone.
Zoey’s mom still calls, though.
Leaves messages when Zoey doesn’t answer, threatens visits that never happen. Same cycle, same pattern—but it doesn’t hit her the same way anymore. She doesn’t carry it like she used to.
She’s stronger now.
Stronger than she gives herself credit for.
A soft buzz cuts through the quiet.
Zoey shifts slightly, pulling her phone from where it rests beside her. “That’s weird,” she says, already unlocking it.
“What?”
“Motion alert at Death’s Door.”
That pulls me up just a little. “Show me.”
She taps into the camera feed and turns the screen so I can see it.
It stabilizes—
Just the mailman.
Dropping something off and walking away like it’s any other day.
“Huh,” I mutter. “That’s new.”
“It barely gets mail,” she says, frowning slightly. “Most of it’s electronic.”
“Stay here,” I tell her, already pushing up. “I’ll go grab it.”
The walk over is quiet, the kind of quiet that feels earned instead of empty.
Death’s Door stands the same, solid and unmoving, like it always has.
The envelope is sitting near the entrance—larger than usual, heavier. I turn it over once in my hand, but there’s nothing immediately obvious about it.
So I head back.
“What is it?” Zoey asks as soon as I step inside.
I hand it to her. “Looks official.”
She takes it carefully, already focused, her attention locking onto it in that way she has when something matters.
When she opens it, everything shifts.
Her expression tightens first—curiosity, then something deeper as she starts reading through the contents.
“This is from Mr. Benz’s brother,” she says quietly.
“The one from your old place?”
She nods, scanning faster now. “He… he left me his shares. Of the mortuary.”
I blink. “Shares, like—ownership?”
“Yes.” Her voice catches slightly. “And if I ever left, they convert to cash and—”
She stops.
Just… stops.
“How much?” I ask.
She looks back down.
“…Almost a million.”
I let out a low breath. “Well, fuck.”
She huffs a small, emotional laugh. “Yeah.”
There’s another letter in the envelope. Different. Handwritten.
She knows what it is before she opens it.
“This is from him,” she murmurs.
She reads it quietly, eyes moving slowly this time, taking in every word like she doesn’t want to miss any of it. By the time she’s done, she just sits there for a second, holding the paper like it matters in a way I can’t fully understand—but I can respect.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods slowly. “Yeah… I just… he believed in me.”
“No shit,” I reply. “You’ve been running Death’s Door like you were born for it.”
She smiles faintly at that, then looks up at me with something more focused now.
“I know what I want to do with it.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“It didn’t feel like a question.”
I lean back slightly. “Alright. What’s the plan?”
“I want to expand the cabin,” she says, gesturing around us. “Add rooms. Make it bigger.”
“That’s not hard to pull off,” I say.
“Especially if we… you know…” She glances at me briefly. “…ever decide to have a family.”
That lands.
Heavy.
“In that case,” I reply, smirking slightly, “you’d have to marry me first.”
She blinks at me.
“…Are you asking?”
I shrug. “I guess I am.”
The pause that follows isn’t hesitation.
It’s weight.
“Yes,” she says, smiling now. “I think I am.”
A laugh slips out of me, rough but real. “Alright then.”
“Alright then,” she echoes.
She leans into me again, and something about the way she says her next words makes my chest tighten just a little.
“And I want to do something at Death’s Door,” she adds. “For Undertaker.”
My fingers flex slightly against her back. “Yeah?”
“Something permanent. Something that honors him.”
I nod once. “He’d like that.”
“He deserved that.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “He did.”
For a while after that, we just sit.
No pressure. No expectations. Just… together.
The kind of quiet that feels like something we built instead of something we fell into.
I pull her a little closer without thinking, my hand settling against her back like it belongs there now.
“You sure about all this?” I ask.
She tilts her head up, looking at me with that steady certainty she’s never lacked.
“I’ve been sure about you longer than you think.”
I exhale quietly. “That’s concerning.”
She laughs, soft and real.
“I love you,” she says.
No hesitation.
No question.
“I love you too,” I reply.
And this time—
It doesn’t feel like something I have to fight.
It feels like something I get to keep.
Something we’re building.
Something that might actually last.
For the first time in a long time—
The future doesn’t feel like something waiting to take something away.
It feels like something we’re allowed to have.