Chapter Twenty-Five
Jax
The cabin is too quiet without them. Not peaceful-quiet. Not restful-quiet.
The kind that reminds me every few seconds that two voices are missing. Their laughter. Their footsteps. The scrape of Violet’s pencil against the kitchen table. The soft humming Ava does without realizing—always off-key, always comforting.
Silence used to be my armor. Now it’s a hollow echo where life once rattled around, uninvited but welcome.
The day outside is gray-blue, the sky heavy with storm-feeling. There’s a particular tension the mountain gets before snow comes—like it’s inhaling, waiting to exhale white.
I walk a lap around the living room—counting the floorboards for no reason—and end up back at the table because there’s nowhere else to go. Nowhere that doesn’t feel scraped clean of what they brought into this place.
The laptop’s screen reflects a version of me I don’t quite recognize.
Beard grown in thicker than I used to allow.
Hair curling because I haven’t cared enough to cut it.
Eyes darker than they were even months ago.
I look like someone who’s lived alone on a mountain so long the mirror stopped mattering.
Maybe that’s exactly what I am.
I click the tab that has been open for weeks, maybe months, maybe a lifetime.
Silver Ridge Community Clinic — Donation Portal
I’ve funneled money before. Quietly. Indirectly. Enough to keep them afloat when equipment went down or bills piled too high for a town this small. But what they need now isn’t just a lifeline—it’s a future.
Without funding, they’ll have to close. The nearest hospital is two hours away. That’s death for someone like Violet when minutes matter.
I type a figure. Then add a zero. Then another.
It climbs to a number that once felt like pocket change, and now feels like exposing my jugular. Enough to keep the clinic running for years. Enough to cover equipment, staffing, medicine, emergency funds. Enough to make every storm a little less dangerous.
Enough to erase the fear in Ava’s voice when she whispers that ‘she’ll find a way, she always does’.
I stare at the digits until they blur. Clicking submit isn’t the hard part. Hiding where it comes from—that’s what could ruin everything.
Because if the wrong person sees that number, if a single database pings with a flagged name…
Jackson Hale resurrects. The grave cracks open. Silver Ridge becomes a spectacle.
Ava and Violet get dragged into a circus of cameras and headlines. People knocking at their door, demanding interviews. Strangers hungry for tragedy, for gossip, for blood in the snow.
That’s why I disappeared. Why I let the world mourn a ghost. Why I built walls too thick for hope to crawl over.
I can’t let that world swallow them because I missed them too much to stay gone.
I push the laptop away and stand, hands braced on the counter. The silence presses harder now, like the cabin itself knows what I’m risking.
The storm moves closer. Clouds stacking. Wind clawing its way down the ridge.
Routine, I tell myself. Do something that passes the hours until exhaustion makes the quiet tolerable again.
I pull on a jacket and step outside. The air is sharp, biting at skin like it’s trying to make sure I still feel something. Snow hasn’t started yet, but the smell is already there—cold metal and sky.
The woodpile is dwindling. I test a few logs, bring an armful inside. The mundane scrape of bark, the thunk of wood against the hearth…it fills a sliver of the empty space.
I make a fire. Watch flames catch, licking up familiar grooves.
The cabin is colder without that.
Back at the table, I open the laptop again. The donation form waits, cursor blinking like a heartbeat.
There has to be a way to send this without breathing life into the past.
I scroll through backend pathways I haven’t touched in years—the shell companies built during expansion, the volunteers’ funds meant to mask anonymous investors, the offshore routes we used for privacy in negotiations. It’s a network of bones I thought I’d buried deep.
One of them might work. If I’m careful. If luck doesn’t turn its back again.
Morning bleeds into afternoon. The storm moves closer. Wind rattles the roof, and the sky darkens until everything outside turns slate-colored.
I lean back, rubbing my eyes. Enough for today. Enough thinking. Enough feeling.
Except reflection comes anyway—images of Ava standing in my kitchen, chin high, fire in her eyes, telling me she’s not leaving.
And then the distance that came after. The careful way she avoids leaning too close.
The forced small talk. That smile she gives me like she’s holding something fragile inside her ribs.
I didn’t deserve her staying. I know that. But wanting her—wanting them—doesn’t stop.
I rise again, restless, haunted. I pour a drink I shouldn’t. Whiskey burns its way down, leaving nothing warm behind. I sip again anyway, lifting the laptop back into reach.
I stare at the donation field. At the cursor. At the promise I want to make and can’t say aloud.
Maybe I can’t keep Ava. Maybe I can’t be what Violet needs. But I can make sure they are never helpless again.
The wind screams. The cabin creaks. The trees groan with the weight of gathering snow.
I press my thumb to the trackpad and take a breath that feels too deep for one person.
Submit.
The screen freezes for a beat. Then refreshes.
Donation Received.
No name. No trace. Only the number. Only the hope that it works.
I exhale slowly, hands steadying at last.
I don’t know how to live without them anymore, or if I ever truly did. But I can keep them safe. Even from a distance. Even without ever hearing my name spoken softly from Ava’s lips again.
The storm howls.
I lean back in the chair, close my eyes, and listen to the wind sweep over the roof.
For the first time in years, I don’t feel like I’m dying here.
I feel like I’m protecting someone worth living for.