Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
EMMA EASTON
I wake to cold sheets. My hand reaches instinctively across the mattress, searching for warmth, but the space beside me is empty.
The indentation where Jude slept is still there, warm, like he left just moments ago.
The room is dark except for the pale sliver of moonlight leaking through the window, painting faint lines across the floor.
My chest tightens.
I sit up slowly, listening. But I hear nothing. I slip out of bed, careful not to make the floorboards creak. The guest room door is open, and I peek inside. Heather’s curled up on her side, wrapped in blankets, drowning in Micah’s shirt. But he’s gone, too.
A quiet dread threads into my veins.
I keep moving.
The light catches my eye first. A faint, shifting glow at the back of the house—two small beams flickering against the patio railing. Phone flashlights.
I press my hand to the sliding glass door as I look out into the night. Jude and Micah sit outside in the dark, their faces half-lit by the glow of their phones. The rest of them is swallowed by shadow. The house is too dark. I’m invisible here.
Then Micah flicks the lighter. The tiny flame snaps to life, illuminating the little black case on the table between them. For a heartbeat, the flame shows their hollow cheeks and tired eyes. My throat closes.
No.
Please, no.
Micah works efficiently. The soft crackle of the lighter repeats—brief bursts of fire kissing metal, heating it, bending the shadows around their shapes.
A faint chemical tang drifts through the barely opened door, sharp enough that I catch it even from here.
The scent mixes with the cold night air, a wrongness I feel in my bones.
When the needle catches the light, I bite down on a sob so hard my teeth ache.
Jude sits beside him with a tourniquet around his arm.
He takes the needle from Micah, and I watch in horror as he sinks it into his skin.
Immediately, his head tips back, exposing the vulnerable column of his throat.
His eyes flutter half-shut, dazed, distant—like he’s floating somewhere far from the man I know.
Micah’s hands move in tiny, deliberate motions. Drawing in. Tapping out bubbles. Rotating his wrist in that awful, professional flick. The lighter snaps off, plunging them back into a dim phone-glow.
Jude’s breath leaves him in a long, shuddering exhale, his head falling back again, chair creaking under the weight of him letting go. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t reach for Micah. He doesn’t stop him when he injects, too.
The patio is so quiet I can hear the dull thud of Micah setting the case back down, and the faint inhale he makes as he sinks deeper into himself.
I watch them until the night grows still again, until they sit there in hollow quiet—two broken men wrapped in shadows, leaning on the only comfort they know.
My heart hammers frantically, likely bruising my ribs.
When they start to stand, I slip away from the door and hurry back to bed. I crawl under the covers, wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands.
I turn onto my side just as the door clicks softly. Footsteps.
The mattress dips behind me. Jude’s familiar weight returns, his breath warm against my neck as he settles in carefully, like he doesn’t want to wake me. I keep my eyes closed. Pretend I didn’t see anything. And that I’m not silently breaking beside him.