23. Rowan
ROWAN
Ifeel safe.
The realization comes quietly, slipping in as I settle into the passenger seat and the seatbelt clicks into place. My pulse slows, inch by inch, as Justin pulls away from the curb and heads into the night. I don’t know when my shoulders dropped or when my breathing evened out—only that it did.
I shouldn’t be surprised when he turns down the correct street without asking for an address. Of course he knows where I live. The thought should unsettle me more than it does.
He drives with both hands on the wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead. His jaw works back and forth, tight, controlled, like anger has been given a seat in the back and told to stay there.
“Who are you?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“Why are you following me?” I try again.
I get nothing.
Streetlights slide across the interior of the car, catching the sharp line of his jaw, the rigid set of his mouth. He looks purposeful in a way that’s almost unnerving—like this isn’t some unexpected detour in his life. Like handling messes is simply what he does.
“Why did you come?” My voice is quieter now. “You didn’t have to.”
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. “Do you have any sense of self-preservation at all?”
I stiffen. “Some things are worth the risk.”
He glances at me then, just briefly. “Explain it to me, Rowan. Why are some risks worth more than others?”
The question drops between us, heavy and loaded. I can’t answer it without going all the way back. Without opening doors I’ve nailed shut for a reason. I’d have to drag up memories I can’t touch without losing my breath, my balance, my grip on the present.
Silence stretches.
Then he speaks again. “You want to know who I am?”
My breath catches. “Yes.”
“So you can write about me?” he asks. “Turn me into a headline?”
“I wouldn’t—”
“That’s exactly why you won’t know,” he cuts in. “You don’t get to decide how my story ends.”
I drop my gaze to my hands. They’re still shaking, just slightly. Is this about Anonymous? He knows I write. He knows more than he should. The thought curls cold in my stomach. Have I crossed the wrong people?
“I’m not afraid of you,” I say.
“I know,” he replies immediately. “And that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it?”
The rest of the drive passes in silence, thick and charged.
When we stop outside my building, he doesn’t get out. He doesn’t even look at me.
“Stay out of trouble, Rowan,” he warns. “You got lucky tonight. My influence only reaches so far.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask.
He turns his head then. His expression is hard. His voice doesn’t soften.
“Then I’ll keep finding you. And one day, I won’t get there in time.”
I open the door.
“Thank you.”
I don’t know what else to say. He doesn’t answer as I walk away.
I dream in fragments.
It never starts at the beginning. It drops me in already moving, breathless, too late to change anything.
The sky is pink in that way that feels safe—cotton-candy soft, smeared with gold at the edges.
Evening, not night. Missy says we can walk home because it isn’t far and because daylight hasn’t finished leaving yet.
She laughs when I hesitate, points at the cornfields lining the road and tells me they look like they have hair.
She says it like it’s ridiculous. I feel like I’m ridiculous for hanging on her every word.
I tell her I’m not scared.
In the dream, I believe it.
We’re holding hands. Her palm is warm, steady. She swings our arms as we walk, humming under her breath. Everything feels ordinary. That’s the cruelest part—how normal it all feels. Like this could be any day. Any moment. Any time or place.
Then the sound comes.
Footsteps.
Crunching. Too heavy. Too close.
Missy’s hand tightens around mine. She tells me not to look.
Her voice is still calm, still trying to be big enough for the both of us, but something underneath it shifts.
She tells me to keep walking. Faster. She keeps saying, It’s fine, it’s fine, but the words don’t land right.
They wobble. They seem far away. They sound like she’s forcing herself to believe in her own lies.
Someone grabs her.
The dream always sharpens there, like the world snaps into focus just to make sure I don’t miss it.
I try to grab her back. I reach for her arm, her jacket, anything—but a hand shoves me hard.
I fall. Rocks tear into my leg. Pain blooms bright and sudden, but I don’t cry.
I don’t make a sound. I won’t let myself.
Missy is screaming and I don’t want her to hear me cry. I don’t want to add to her pain.
I don’t think she hears me anyway.
I see them then. Three men. They’re wrong in that way monsters are—too real and solid. Too big to overcome. I don’t know their names. In the dream, I never do. One wears a hat. One has a jacket with a stripe down the sleeve. One has dirty shoes, mud caked into the seams, dry and flaky.
I don’t remember their faces, but I remember the sound of their laughter.
Missy turns her head just enough to look at me. Her face is pale, terrified—but fierce. She yells at me to run. She says it once. Then again. Then a third time, louder, sharper, in a voice I’ve never heard her use before. It sounds like a roar.
Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun.
I don’t want to leave her. Every part of me is screaming to stay, to fight, to do something—anything. But that voice cuts through me. It leaves no room for argument.
So I run.
I run until my chest burns and my throat tears and the world blurs at the edges.
I run until the cornfields disappear and houses appear like mirages.
I knock on a door. I think I scream help over and over, but I’m not sure.
The woman who opens it keeps saying I’m bleeding.
She keeps touching my leg, my shoulder, my face.
Her voice sounds far away, like it’s underwater.
All I can think is that Missy will catch up. She always catches up.
I sit on the floor in the dream, shaking, watching the doorway. I wait. I keep waiting. Every sound makes my heart leap.
But she never comes. She doesn’t burst through the door. She doesn’t call my name, or grab my hand and tell me it’s over.
She doesn’t come.
That’s when I wake up.
Every single time.
With my heart hammering, my throat tight, my body soaked in sweat like it’s trying to remember the run. The room is dark. Quiet. Safe. And still, the echo of her voice hangs in the air.
Run.
She saved me.
And the dream never lets me forget the price I’ve had to pay for being alive.