Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Shae
“New evidence discovered in the Halston case. Timeline inconsistencies. Witness recantations. How well do you really know It Girl Shae Halston?” The Watcher’s latest episode drops on a Tuesday evening. I hear the distorted voice—raw, stretched thin—over the speaker in the charity’s common room.
I freeze mid-pour, laundry detergent bubbles sliding down my finger.
Marissa, one of the high school volunteers, pokes my shoulder, wide-eyed. “They’re saying you lied, Shae.”
Lies bend. Truth breaks.
Harper fights back within the hour—urgent, protective—but her voice has that edge of worry that makes people stupid.
Five minutes after Harper’s podcast airs, she’s calling to tell me she’s on the next flight to LAX. “We’ll make a weekend of it. A girl’s night. A recording session.”
I sigh, thinking I don’t have the mental space to record another episode. Not after Declan, the vigil, the internet true crime junkies working overtime. “Just us,” I say. “No audience. No podcast. Just truth.”
“Okay—just a girl’s weekend. I’ll rent that AirBnB in Ojai again. It’s so peaceful and charming, maybe I can get James to move to California.” I can practically hear her wistful smile over the phone line.
Charming.
This town has no idea what it’s harboring.
* * *
By dinnertime that night, Harper is curled up on my couch, second glass of wine cradled in her hands. “I—I almost believed. All of it.”
I sip my own glass. “Belief is subjective. Tell me, Harper—what do you really want?”
She pauses too long. I see the wine haze swimming in her blue irises.
Suddenly she blurts, “You know, I understand more than you think. I covered up something once. For my sister.” Her engagement ring catches the light, innocent.
“You can’t tell anyone—James is the only other person that knows and he would never forgive me if he knew I told you. ”
Surprise rises in me—bright, quick. I swallow it.
“You know I’m here if you ever want to talk,” I say. “No judgment.”
She nods, wipes her eyes, sniffs. “Thank you. I appreciate it more than you know.”
“Always,” I murmur, patting her hand. Comfort as camouflage.
She manages a small smile. “It’d probably do me good to talk about it. The guilt keeps me up at night sometimes.”
“Guilt is a monster,” I say, eager for her to share more details.
Truth is as potent as any weapon.
Harper seems to catch herself then, her lips pressed closed as if she’s physically holding back her confession. She finishes her glass of wine and then sets it on the table. “I should probably get back to the AirBnB, it’s been a long day.”
“I bet.” I force a smile, walking her to the front door. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I pull her into a quick hug. “Sleep well.”
After Harper leaves, Blake appears in the doorway, silent, camera resting in the dark. He catches me watching—hungry, impressed.
“You hear that?” I ask.
He nods. “Had the recording ready in case she revealed anything.”
“Mmm.” Heat curls under my skin. “It makes me hot how competent you are.”
Blake’s brows lift. “My diabolical tendencies turn you on, huh?”
“Yep.” I smile. “You know me so well.”
I slide my arms around him, mouth to his neck, a slow suction that says mine.
“We’re a good team,” he murmurs.
Blake steps behind me, too close. He always is—orbiting my body like I’m the axis of some doomed planet. My spine stiffens out of habit, but I don’t move. Control sometimes looks like letting someone believe they’ve won proximity.
“Hell of a sunset,” he murmurs, voice low, worn rough by the day. He reeks of wine and cheap cologne.
I tilt my glass, watching the last droplets cling to the rim. “Sunsets are cheap tricks. People mistake them for meaning.”
He chuckles, dark and pleased. “You’ve got a way of killing magic.”
“Magic’s for people who still believe in it.” I turn my head just enough to catch him in my periphery, his jaw sharp in the dying light. Men like Blake—cocky, hungry, certain—stay that way until they meet someone like me. Then they turn into teenagers: fumbling, second-guessing. And I feed on it.
His palm lands on my hip, hot even through cotton. I take another sip, pretending indifference while I catalog the sensation: pressure, warmth, the thrum of someone else’s pulse trying to sync with mine.
Cars drift by on the county road, headlights blinking like fireflies. He doesn’t care. Exhibitionism excites him. He wants to be caught consuming me.
I let my head fall back against his shoulder—calculated. “You’re predictable,” I murmur.
“Predictable?” His breath tickles my ear.
“Mhm. Men always are.”
He laughs, low and throaty, grip tightening. “And women aren’t?”
I turn and meet his eyes. Dark now—shadow and hunger. He thinks he’s dangerous. Thinks he’s my match. Cute.
“Women,” I say, dragging a finger down his chest, “are complicated. Which is why you’ll never fully get me.”
It’s a dare. It lands like one. His pupils flare. For a second I think he’ll shove me against the railing and prove something with brute force.
Instead, he smiles like a wolf. Patience tastes better than desperation.
“Maybe,” he says. “But I’ll spend a long time trying.”
The porch creaks as he shifts me, backing me into a wooden post. He cages me in, breath heady with whiskey. My face stays impassive, but my nerves prickle like static.
This isn’t romance. This isn’t love. It’s two predators circling the same carcass, deciding who gets the choicest bite. Blake doesn’t run from my darkness. That makes him useful. Useful is not love.
I know what I am—empty where others are full, sharp where others are soft. Blake leans into the void like he belongs there.
His mouth grazes my cheek, dangerously close to my lips. My body hums—not with affection, with triumph. He wants me. He’s always wanted me. Every time he proves it, I win.
That’s the real climax. Power.
The wine softens edges I usually keep razor-sharp. For one reckless second, I imagine what it might be like to belong to someone. To be seen—not as a project, not as a case study, but as a human worth the risk.
The fantasy sickens me. I smother it with a smirk.
“Do you ever think this—” I gesture vaguely at the porch, the night, his hands on me “—isn’t about passion? That it’s just… not wanting to be alone?”
Blake pulls back, searching my face. “That’s cynical.”
“It’s true.” My laugh is bitter. “Marriages, friendships, hookups in creaky convents—just noise to drown out the silence.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “Then maybe I like the noise.”
For a flicker, I almost believe him. Almost. But the reality is sharper: people like me don’t love. Not the way Hallmark movies and therapists sell it. I can mimic it. Perform it. Inside, it’s wires and static.
Still, the warmth of him scratches something primal—an itch I didn’t know I had.
It’s been so long. I decide then to let him take me.
Let him think he’s special. He lifts my skirt, fingers teasing, then angles me over the railing and slowly slides inside.
I groan at the slow stretch, the intrusion.
His hands cover me—claim me. He bites my neck, then sucks, then bites again.
My eyes flutter with animal pleasure, and for one stupid second I let myself think: Maybe. Maybe this one could be forever.
Later, when the porch goes quiet and the stars sharpen overhead, Blake sags against me, spent.
His head drops to my shoulder, breath rough.
I can feel him trying to turn it into something—trying to cross an invisible line into intimacy.
Bringing him to his knees, hearing his groans, watching his walls crack—trophies. Not tenderness.
“You make me sleepy and happy,” he murmurs. “We should take this to the bedroom.” He shifts, sliding out of me slowly.
I let him bask in the illusion for one beat, then slice through it.
“I sleep better alone,” I say softly, steel underneath.
His head jerks up. “What?”
“You heard me. Don’t get clingy.”
The confusion—the flicker of hurt—thrills me.
Power again. Always power. I think of my dad locking me in a closet for hours.
Dean leaving me for a younger, prettier version of me.
Bishop getting under my skin in Chicago.
Isaac using me and discarding me in Carmel.
And Taylor—poor Taylor—collateral damage.
Men always leave. Not one of them stayed. It’s always been me. Just me.
I watch Blake for a long beat and imagine, briefly, what it would look like to make him permanent. To flip the narrative. A dark thought flits through my mind that I could take his life and keep a piece of him in a locket and call it devotion.
Instead, I turn away, dismissing him.
“You’re unbelievable,” he mutters, but he doesn’t move.
I smile sweetly. “That’s what they all say.”
Finally he straightens, pulling himself together, grumbling under his breath. He kisses my temple anyway, because men always want one last taste before they slink away.
When he’s gone, I stand alone on the porch, the night humming around me. Crickets. Dead leaves. The sharp clean air. And for once I allow myself the luxury of honesty.
This isn’t love. This isn’t forever. This is survival dressed up as connection.
And maybe that’s all anyone ever has. Maybe that’s the essence of true love. This is the thread that runs through the Daughters of Persephone journal—legacy, not love.
Inside, the house is quiet, shadows stretched long across the tile. The air smells faintly of dust and old incense. I picture him in the guest room, restless, wanting me. I smirk.
Let him want. Wanting is the tightest leash of all.
I raise the glass toward the dark window, my reflection smirking back. “To loneliness,” I whisper. “The only thing that never leaves.”
And I drink.