31. Kate
Kate
Having Finn around had been good. Really good.
The cabin was quiet except for a low muttering voice coming from the kitchen.
My stomach dropped.
Noah.
I hurried down the hall barefoot, heart hammering, only to stop dead in the doorway.
Finn stood beside the table wearing grey sweatpants and a black thermal shirt, staring down at Noah with visible suspicion.
“You are way too small to make this much mess.”
Noah kicked happily on the blanket spread across the table. A diaper sat crooked beneath him.
Finn noticed me and immediately scowled. “Don’t start.”
I blinked once. Then twice.
“You put it on backwards.”
“It’s still covering the important parts.” Finn looked down at Noah like it was somehow the baby’s fault. “Well, no one explains these things.”
A laugh—a real one—escaped me before I could stop it. Noah chose that exact moment to pee straight up into the air.
Finn recoiled. “Jesus Christ.”
I laughed harder, and for one tiny moment, the cabin didn’t feel like a hiding place. It felt almost normal.
But the moment passed too quickly.
Finn cleaned Noah up with the grim determination of a man defusing a bomb while I made coffee and tried not to smile every time he muttered something under his breath.
“You laugh again and you can deal with the next one.”
“You’re doing great,” I said sweetly.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Don’t mock me in my own cabin.”
A small smile tugged at my mouth. “You literally put his diaper on back to front.”
“It was dark.”
“It’s eight in the morning.”
Finn pointed at me with the clean diaper. “Hostile environment. Lack of sleep. Uncooperative suspect.”
Noah squealed happily from the table.
By the time he was fed and changed again, snow had started falling outside.
Heavy flakes drifted past the windows, covering the trees and swallowing the world beyond the cabin little by little. It should’ve felt peaceful. Instead, it made the isolation feel heavier.
Finn noticed it too.
His mood shifted sometime after lunch. Not dramatically, just subtly. He checked the locks twice, glancing out the windows more often.
Finn stepped onto the porch every hour, boots crunching through snow while his eyes swept the tree line.
The first time, I thought nothing of it. By the third time, my stomach tightened.
“You expecting someone?” I asked when he came back inside, bringing cold air and the smell of snow with him.
Finn shrugged out of his jacket. “Always.”
He crossed to the kitchen counter and checked his phone before setting it back down again.
Noah babbled from the blanket spread across the floor.
Finn looked over immediately. The tension in his shoulders eased just slightly before he crouched down beside him.
“You trying to eat your own foot again?” he muttered.
Noah grinned.
I watched from the couch, pulling the blanket tighter around myself.
It was strange, seeing Finn like that.
At the clubhouse, he’d seemed hard. Untouchable. All sharp edges and watchful eyes. But there, in the quiet cabin with Noah trying to shove his sock into his mouth, he looked almost young.
Finn glanced up suddenly and caught me staring. “What?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed like he didn’t believe me, then his phone buzzed and the softness vanished. Finn grabbed the phone, jaw tightening as he read whatever message flashed across the screen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
That answer again.
A lump formed in my throat and my hands trembled, because every time someone said that to me, something bad happened afterwards.
Finn must’ve seen something on my face because his expression shifted slightly. “Reaper,” he said after a second. “Just checking in.”
I nodded, but the knot in my stomach didn’t loosen.