Chapter One
Quiad
AJA FOXX
~ Quiad ~
I woke before the sun. The shadows on my ceiling held their breath, the air in my room thick with it, too—the kind of silence that told you the world was about to change and had the decency to wait until you’d gotten your bearings.
I lay still and counted my heartbeats, one hand curled in the space where Levi’s wild tangle of hair sometimes sprawled when he napped in my bed. Nineteen today. Two years since I’d started counting days, and now they’d run out.
I let my mind drift on the edge of sleep until it got dangerous.
The part where I could see him as clear as if he’d been carved into the insides of my eyelids: Levi, barefoot in the kitchen, clutching a chipped mug to his chest, that blue-eyed gaze already searching for me before he’d even had coffee.
I let that vision stay a second longer than I should.
A weakness, maybe. Or the only reason I’d stayed human this long.
By four, the farm was already calling. I peeled off the sheets and stood, taking my time, every movement deliberate—never in a hurry, not even for this.
The floorboards creaked under my weight, the cold grain biting into my calloused soles.
I dressed the same way I fought—first the armor, then the weapons.
Threadbare jeans. Black t-shirt, soft from too many washings.
Sweatshirt that still bore the faint stain of varnish along one sleeve.
I went for the boots last, lacing them tight enough to remind myself I was made of bone, not want.
Coffee first. Always.
The kitchen was empty, but still lived-in: Harlow’s empty mug by the sink, Bodean’s muddy boots left just inside the mudroom door.
I traced my thumb along the rim of my own cup before filling it, black and bitter, as close to ritual as I allowed.
I drank standing by the window, watching the early fog snake through the orchard.
The memory of Levi at seventeen hovered beside me, ghost-pale and jittery, skinny arms wrapped around his own ribs, like he was holding together the pieces nobody else had bothered to tape up.
He’d shown up midwinter, shivering in a jacket that wasn’t his and too polite to complain about the cold. I remembered the way he’d watched me: first out of the side of his eye, then bolder, as if waiting to see if I’d live up to the story they’d told him.
The social worker had said, “He needs somewhere quiet, somewhere with structure.” I’d said, “We have that,” and Ma and Pa signed the paper.
I took another swallow, holding it in my mouth, letting the heat burn away the sharpness of that first day. Most kids showed up with defenses welded to their skin, but Levi didn’t have the energy to pretend.
He’d flinched at sudden movement, sure. He’d hesitated to take food off a plate, like I might snatch it back.
But after the first night, when he realized the walls here didn’t hold hidden fists, he’d gone soft and curious instead.
Everything in him telegraphed want: for safety, for approval, for someone to bother learning what he liked besides not being yelled at.
That was the problem. I’d never been good at liking things in half-measures.
I finished my coffee in silence, watching the sun begin to bleed orange behind the trees. I tapped my fingers on the window frame, feeling for the hairline crack I’d patched with wood glue after Harlow knocked into it last year. My hands always found the flaws in things before the beauty.
Except for Levi.
I opened the top drawer of my old dresser—a leftover from my mother’s attempt to make my space “feel more homey.” The drawer stuck, as it always did, and I worked it loose with the practiced patience of a man who fixed things for a living.
At the back, under a stack of utility bills, lay the object that had kept my hands busy every night for the last month: the leather bracelet, burnished and tight, my name pressed into the inside with a metal stamp. “Quiad.”
The other bracelet never left my wrist. “Sunshine,” it said, in letters almost too small to read, but Levi’s eyesight was sharp when it came to things that mattered.
I rolled the new bracelet in my palm. The weight of it was slight, but not insignificant. I tried to picture Levi’s reaction, and failed—every prediction fell short of what he actually delivered, and I’d learned not to bet against him. I set it back in the drawer. Not yet.
* * * *
I passed the time with a workout: pushups, pullups on the joist above the laundry room door, a set of squats while the sun finished rising. I liked the pain. It kept my mind clear, kept me from getting tangled in old patterns.
I thought of Levi again. Not the shivering kid this time, but the one from last week: taller now, arms still skinny but filling out, that wide-mouthed grin aimed at me as he’d tried to outlift Bodean in the barn.
He’d failed, but not by much.
The real test had been the woodshop. I’d agreed to show him the basics: how to use the table saw without losing fingers, how to sand a curve until it was glassy smooth. I’d expected him to get bored, or distracted, like most of the others.
Instead, he’d watched every move, memorized the sequence, asked questions that told me he’d already figured out the answer, but wanted to hear it from me anyway.
The first project was a box. He’d made it for himself, a secret place for things he’d brought from the old life: a ratty sketchbook, a cracked guitar pick, a strip of denim torn from the inside hem of his jeans.
When I’d asked him what the box was for, he’d shrugged. “Memory insurance,” he’d said, deadpan, but his face flushed when he looked away.
I remembered opening that box one night when he’d left it in the shop. Not to snoop, just to check his dovetail joints. I’d thumbed through the sketchbook, expecting cartoon doodles or copied tattoo art.
What I found instead: pages and pages of me. Not posed, but fragments: my hands wrapped around a chisel, the ridge of my jaw when I laughed—something I didn’t know I did—the curve of my shoulder under the shop lights.
There were even sketches of the way I stood when I thought I was alone: one foot braced on the bottom rung of the workbench, head tilted as if I could hear what the wood was saying back to me.
I hadn’t mentioned it to him. I closed the box and set it back where he’d left it. But that night, I’d let myself look at him a little longer when he came to say goodnight.
After Levi turned eighteen last year, the waiting got harder. He knew it, too. He started testing: standing closer than he needed to, bumping my shoulder in the hallway, making jokes that weren’t entirely innocent.
I made a point to ignore most of it. I told myself it was for his sake, that he needed time to get his feet under him before I let him know how badly I wanted him. But the truth was, I liked the ache. It made everything else sharper, more real.
Once, after a storm knocked out the power, we’d spent the evening at the kitchen table in the main house, candles guttering between us, playing cards and drinking warm beer. Harlow had gone to bed early, and the house was so quiet I could hear Levi’s breathing across the table.
He watched me over his cards, chin propped on one fist. “Do you ever get tired of being the strong one?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
I set my cards down and looked at him, letting the question hang in the air. “No,” I’d said, finally. “But it’s a relief, sometimes, when someone notices how much work it is.”
He smiled then, soft and a little bit sad. “I notice everything,” he said, and I believed him.
I checked the clock. Nearly six. I had two hours before anyone expected me. I went back to the dresser, took out the bracelet, and slipped it into my back pocket. My thumb found the edge of the one on my wrist and pressed, hard. It grounded me.
I padded downstairs to the shop, grabbed the stuff I’d hidden away, and then headed out. I had work to do before the sun cleared the treetops. The creek wasn’t going to set itself up.
The last time I’d gone to this much trouble for a birthday was probably my own, and I’d hated every minute of it, but this was different.
I’d planned every detail: the blanket, the sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, the thermos of coffee, the perfect spot by the water where the current slowed enough to hear the frogs over the rush.
I’d even tucked a cheap little Bluetooth speaker in the basket in case he wanted music.
On my way out the door, I paused at the coat-rack and found the battered blue hoodie Levi had “borrowed” from me last fall and never returned.
It smelled like him—like detergent, pencil shavings, and the cinnamon gum he always had in his pocket.
I tucked it under my arm, feeling like an idiot, but unable to leave it behind.
The grass was slick with dew. My boots left perfect prints all the way down the path, each one erasing the last, until I reached the creek and everything felt new again.
I set out the blanket, smoothed the corners, and arranged the food so it looked like I hadn’t tried at all. I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat on the rough edge of the blanket, and let the chill of the morning settle into my bones.
I could hear the main house behind me: the slam of the back door, someone calling out a goodbye. It would be at least half an hour before Levi followed the trail and found me.
I sat with my thoughts, unmoving, except for my hand tracing the word “Sunshine” on my wrist over and over until the feeling turned numb.
The morning unfolded around me, slow and deliberate. Mist burned off the water in pale sheets. A hawk circled above, hunting for breakfast. I wondered if this was what peace felt like, or if it was just the moment before a fight.
I didn’t mind either.
The blanket was still damp at the edges when I heard Levi’s footsteps crunching through the leaves. I didn’t turn. I let him find me, just like I’d let him push every other boundary since the day he showed up.