8. Found You
Chapter eight
Found You
Icouldn't sleep.
Something had jolted me awake around three in the morning, my heart hammering before my eyes were fully open. A sound, maybe, or just the particular silence of the hour, that dead space between night and dawn when the world held its breath.
I lay in the dark and listened to my pulse slow. Listened to the sounds of the apartment settling, the creak of old wood, the distant hum of the refrigerator. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.
But my brain wouldn't stop.
It was four in the morning. I'd been in Magnolia Creek for three weeks, and somehow the distance had made the memories closer, not further.
Like being safe had given them permission to surface.
Like all the things I'd been running from had finally caught up and were sitting in the corner of my bedroom, waiting to be acknowledged.
Marcus.
Three years together. I'd met him at a design conference in Charlotte.
He was charming, attentive, exactly the kind of person who made you feel like the most important person in the room.
He'd asked intelligent questions about my work.
He'd remembered my coffee order after one conversation.
He'd looked at me like I was someone worth remembering.
We moved in together after a year. I thought I was happy. I thought this was what love looked like.
The change had been slow. So slow that I hadn't noticed it happening until I was already trapped.
The way he needed to know where I was at all times, not as a request but as an expectation.
How often he had opinions about my clothes, my friends, my schedule, opinions that weren't really opinions but instructions wrapped in concern.
The way my world got smaller, piece by piece, boundary by boundary, until I was living inside walls I hadn't agreed to build.
And the incidents. Small at first. A glass breaking in the kitchen, an accident, my hand slipping while I washed dishes, but his insistence that I'd thrown it.
A text message I swore I'd sent, that he swore I hadn't.
The feeling of being watched that I told myself was paranoia, because surely no one would actually follow their girlfriend to the grocery store.
The night he'd cornered me in our bedroom, his hands on my shoulders just a little too tight, his face too close to mine, breathing my air as if he owned it.
His eyes had seemed wrong in that moment, darker than they should have been, the pupils too large, something moving in their depths that didn't look entirely human. The air around him had smelled wrong too—that same faint sulfur I’d caught in the car, sharper now, as if his anger fed it.
"You belong to me," he had growled. "You'll always belong to me. Don't ever forget that."
I'd thought it was possessive, then. Romantic, even, in a twisted way. The kind of intensity that people wrote songs about.
Now I knew it was a promise. And a threat.
Finding the tracking app on my phone had proved it.
The box of photographs in his closet, photos of me taken without my knowledge, from angles that suggested he'd been watching for months, had proved it.
The rose on my pillow the morning after I'd had drinks with a colleague, a colleague Marcus claimed not to have known about, had proved it.
I'd left him nearly a year ago. Packed a bag while he was at work, drove to Tara's, never went back.
I thought I was handling it. The restraining order was pending. I was careful about where I went, what I posted, who I talked to. I'd built a new life, piece by careful piece.
My phone buzzed.
The sound cut through the darkness like a blade. I knew before I looked. My body knew, that cold certainty settling into my stomach like ice water.
New message from an unknown number.
Serena. Did you think you could hide from me?
More than just my name this time. A question. A reminder that he was paying attention, that distance was an illusion, that I would never really escape.
My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. The screen light seemed too bright, harsh and accusing in the darkness of my bedroom.
I blocked the number. Deleted the message. Sat in the dark with my knees drawn up to my chest, trying not to scream.
He'd found my new number again. The second time since I'd arrived.
A second breach. Two different unknown numbers, both finding a phone I’d bought with cash.
This wasn’t luck or social engineering—this was something else entirely.
I’d have to ask Tara if she’d given my number to anyone.
And if she hadn’t... then Marcus had methods I couldn’t explain.
Methods that terrified me more than the messages themselves.
That familiar wave of panic hit hard and fast: cold sweat breaking out across my skin, heart hammering against my ribs, the feeling that I couldn't breathe, that the walls were closing in, that I was trapped, alone, and no one could help me.
I counted my breaths. One, two, three. Tried to ground myself in the present.
I was in Magnolia Creek. I was in my apartment. The doors were locked.
Were the doors locked?
I scrambled out of bed, the floor cold against my bare feet, and ran to check. The deadbolt was thrown. The chain was on. I pressed my palm flat against the door and felt the solid wood, the metal hardware, the physical reality of the barrier between me and the outside world.
Through the window beside the door, I caught a glimpse of movement in the yard below.
My heart stopped.
But it wasn't Marcus. It was Callum, crossing the front yard in the hazy light of pre-dawn, moving with that fluid, purposeful stride I'd come to recognize. He paused near the magnolia tree, head tilting slightly, like he was listening to something I couldn't hear.
For a moment, just a moment, he looked up at my window.
I couldn't see his expression from this distance, couldn't tell if he'd actually seen me or was just scanning the property the way he always did. But something about knowing he was there, that he was awake. His presence, watching while I fell apart, eased the panic.
I was safe.
But was I?
The paranoia was the worst part. The way every shadow looked like Marcus. The way every unexpected sound made me flinch. The way I couldn't trust my own perceptions anymore, couldn't tell if the fear was rational or if I was broken, damaged, ruined by what he'd done to me.
I didn't sleep. I sat in the dark with my back against the headboard, watching the door, waiting for something that never came. By the time dawn turned the sky from black to gray to gold, I was exhausted in a way that went deeper than tired.
Later that morning, I made coffee and sat on the porch.
The magnolia tree was doing its thing with the light, the way it always did. The blooms seemed to glow in the morning sun, white petals catching and holding the gold like something precious. Beyond it, the preserve was quiet, that stillness of early morning before the day really began.
Below, I could hear the sounds of the Voss household: footsteps crossing a room, a door closing, someone laughing. The ordinary sounds of people living their lives without fear. Without the constant calculation of threat and escape that had become my default setting.
I wrapped my hands around my mug and tried to feel something other than hollow.
The coffee was too hot. I didn't care. The burn was grounding, proof that I was here, that I was real, that last night hadn't broken me completely.
I made a decision.
He didn't get to take this. Not this town, not this apartment, not this feeling of almost-belonging that I'd started to build. Not the brothers who looked at me like I mattered. Not the tree that felt like coming home.
I liked it here.
I wasn't going anywhere.
But when Jasper passed by, looking up with that easy smile, his expression shifted the moment he caught sight of my face.
The charm fell away like a mask being removed. His whole body changed, going from relaxed to coiled in a single heartbeat. His nostrils flared. His eyes seemed to catch the light differently, amber deepening toward gold.
"Serena?" He was at the bottom of my stairs in seconds, moving faster than seemed possible. "What happened?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine." He didn't push past the bottom step, respecting my space even now, but his whole body was tense, alert. Vibrating with a barely leashed energy that felt almost dangerous. "Talk to me."
"Jasper—"
"You've been crying." It wasn't a question.
His voice was gentle, but his eyes were sharp, taking in every detail: the shadows under my eyes, the way I was holding myself, the death grip I had on my coffee mug.
"And you didn't sleep. And something scared you.
" A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Don't tell me you're fine. "
I looked at him, really looked. In the morning light, with that uncharacteristic seriousness on his face, he seemed older somehow. Larger. The playful rogue who'd shown up with pie was gone, replaced by someone who looked like he could tear apart whatever had hurt me with his bare hands.
The thought should have scared me. It didn't.
"How do you know I've been crying?"
"Your eyes." He said it simply, like it was obvious. "And you're holding that mug like it's the only thing keeping you upright." His voice dropped. "I can smell the fear on you."
The words were strange. Wrong, somehow. People didn't say things like that.
But before I could question it, he was asking: "Can I come up? I won't if you don't want me to. But I'd like to be closer than shouting distance for this conversation."
I hesitated. Every instinct I'd developed over three years with Marcus said to keep people at arm's length, to never show weakness, to handle everything alone because needing someone was dangerous.
But Jasper wasn't Marcus. And I was so tired of being alone with this.
"Yeah," I said. "Okay."