Chapter Eighteen
Ava
Violet spends the afternoon curled on the rug with her sketchbook, headphones on, humming to music only she can hear.
She’s still pale from a scare this morning, but her color has returned, her numbers steady.
I’ve checked them twice. She checked them once more.
We pretend not to worry in front of each other.
Jax putters around the cabin after lunch—silent, uneasy in his own skin.
I see him looking at Violet’s drawing at least twice before he tucks it away somewhere I can’t see.
He hasn’t spoken much since retreating to the workshop earlier, and I haven’t pressed.
His walls shift constantly—some days brick, some days fog, some days a mix of both.
By three o’clock, I’ve cleaned a kitchen that didn’t need cleaning, reorganized a drawer that was already organized, and folded blankets that didn’t require folding. Restlessness claws at me.
I wander down the hallway toward the laundry nook…and that’s when I notice it.
A small, narrow closet door cracked open. Inside—bare metal gleaming. Wires. Panels. A blinking blue light.
I step closer, breath catching.
This is not a normal fuse box.
It looks like something out of a high-security lab—sleek black panels stacked with precision, LED indicators, hidden wiring routed behind the walls.
Even the keypad is sophisticated, the kind I’ve only ever seen in hospital research wings or federal emergency buildings.
Nothing about it belongs in a cabin built in the early eighties by a retired ski patroller who couldn’t spell “technology.”
I stare for a long moment. My pulse thuds loud in my ears.
Why would a handyman need this? Why would anyone up here need this?
My brain does what it always does—threads facts, instincts, warnings into a web.
The way he dodged that tourist’s camera like it was a weapon. The nightmares. The way people vanish from the world when they want to disappear.
A prickle of unease crawls down my spine.
I glance over my shoulder, listening. The soft scratch of pencil on Violet’s page. The click of Jax’s boots on the porch as he steps outside for wood. No one near me.
I slip my phone from my pocket and type his name.
Jax Taylor. Silver Ridge. Handyman. Lodge crew.
Nothing.
No social media. No records. No news hits. Not even a stray mention on a town forum. In a world where even my third-grade gym teacher has a Facebook profile he updates twice a year, the absence feels like a void.
I try different spellings. I try just Jax.
Still nothing.
A single missing footprint is an oversight. An entire missing trail is a choice.
My stomach tightens.
I close the closet gently, trying not to read too much into the sharp tremble in my fingers.
Footsteps land behind me—quiet but unmistakable.
I turn.
Jax stands in the doorway, snow melting in his hair, an armful of split wood cradled against his chest. His eyes flick from my face to the closet, narrowing slightly. Not enough to betray panic. Just enough for a man who watches everything.
“What were you doing?” he asks. His voice is smooth, steady—too steady, like someone trying very hard not to clench his teeth.
I swallow. “Laundry. I opened the wrong door.”
He sets the wood down slowly, as though any sudden motion might tip the entire moment into something dangerous.
“That door stays closed,” he says. No explanation. No softness.
Just a border drawn firmly in the floorboards.
Heat rises in my chest—equal parts frustration and curiosity. “It’s a fuse panel, right? I’ve just never seen one that looks like NASA built it.”
He wipes melted snow from his sleeve, gaze hardening by degrees. “It works. That’s all that matters.”
“That’s not all that matters,” I say. “Most people don’t have that level of tech wired into their cabins. Especially not…handymen.”
Something in his posture shifts—as subtle as a breath, as sharp as a blade.
“Ava,” he warns.
“What?” I push, heart thumping. “You keep insisting you’re just a quiet guy who wants to be left alone. But everything about you screams the opposite.”
“I didn’t ask you to analyze me,” he says, voice dropping lower.
“And I didn’t ask to share a roof with a stranger who has a bunker system hidden behind a mop closet.”
His jaw ticks, a flare of something dark flickering in his eyes. Not anger. Not quite. More like fear dressed up as irritation.
“You don’t need to worry about the security system,” he says tightly. “It keeps people out.”
“People?” I repeat. “Or someone specific?”
His gaze snaps to mine—sharp, guarded, unreadable.
I take a step closer before I can stop myself. “Just be honest with me. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
He looks away too fast. “No.”
He’s lying. It’s obvious. It’s blunt. It hits me like a cold gust straight to the ribs.
“Then why all of this?” My voice softens despite the frustration threading through it. “Why the cameras? Why the tech? Why hide your name from the internet?”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. His stillness is unnerving—like a man calcifying to avoid cracking.
“That’s enough,” he murmurs, tone cutting off the conversation like a locked door. “Drop it.”
“You can’t expect me not to ask questions.”
“And you can’t expect me to answer them.”
The space between us tightens—charged, strained, full of unsaid things. My heart beats too hard, too loud. Something deep inside me stings—not because he’s dangerous, but because he’s wounded and fighting tooth and nail to stay that way.
“Fine,” I say quietly. “If you don’t want to trust me, that’s your choice.”
He flinches almost imperceptibly, as if the word trust hit something raw. But he turns away. Walks past me. Doesn’t look back.
The air he leaves behind feels colder than the storm outside.
I stand there, hand still on the closet knob, pulse thudding, mind spinning a dozen different theories that refuse to settle.
There is something in this cabin he is hiding. Something real. Something heavy.
And no matter how tightly he clamps his jaw or how carefully he closes that closet door…
I can feel the truth pressing against the walls like a storm waiting to break.