Chapter 17 The Present
THE PRESENT
CAIDEN
I thought Colorado would heal me, being in fucking nature, but all I felt was rage. Hot, cold rage.
I hated this. Hated the smiling and the fake warmth, hated the sound of my half-brother’s voice and the way Sabrina chattered like every day was made of spun sugar. Hated most of all the fact that she was here.
Her.
Amelia fucking Langston.
She looked older. It’d been years, and I mean years, since I’d seen her up close. Her hair was darker, but her skin looked even more like it would shatter if you pressed too hard.
I shoved my hands deep in my pockets, clenching and unclenching my fists, and let Shane give the tour.
The “wilderness retreat” was just a cluster of cabins, a main lodge building, a few activity areas and a bunch of hiking trails curling off into the trees like veins.
Sabrina did her best to make it seem fun. “Look! Mountains everywhere, I can’t even believe it! Wait till you see the river.”
Shane grinned. “They do group dinners at the lodge, but if you want to crash early, there’s a kitchenette and a stocked fridge. Caiden, you want to check what they’ve got? I know you hate surprises.”
That last bit was supposed to be a joke. I didn’t laugh.
Instead I shrugged, rolled my shoulders, and made a beeline for the mini-fridge. Needed something to do with my hands, anyway.
When I turned around, Amelia was standing just inside the threshold, eyes dragging over every corner of the room, already measuring the exits. Her hands twisted at the strap of her bag, knuckles almost white. She caught me staring and her mouth tightened, cheeks flushing up pink.
For the briefest second, we were alone. Sabrina and Shane outside, loading up firewood or whatever.
I didn’t say a word. Maybe if I didn’t move, she wouldn’t provoke me. But she did, always did.
“Something on my face?” Her tone was flat, not even trying to be nice.
I laughed sharply. “Didn’t realize you still knew how to look people in the eye.”
A little color drained from her cheeks. Quick, the way she used to flinch when something crept too close. She lifted her chin anyway, getting brave. “Didn’t realize you still needed to intimidate everyone just to feel alive.”
We stood there, breathing each other’s poison.
“I don’t need you to be afraid of me,” I ground out, voice barely above a whisper. “That’s never what I fucking wanted.”
She hung there, suspended, like a thread about to snap. Her voice was softer, but harder, too. “Didn’t stop you, did it?”
No. It didn’t. I remembered the way I used to chase her down the hallways at school, remembered every time I’d spit venom just because my father told me to. Some nights the shame ate my guts.
But that wasn’t today. Today, I could feel the heat under my skin, the urge to push, to see if she’d still break. To see if I could break her.
Before I could say another word, the door banged open. Shane, arms loaded with logs, Sabrina trailing behind laughing at something he’d said.
My hands unclenched.
Fake smile, teeth bared. “We’re all set in here,” I said, loud enough for them to hear.
Sabrina’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yay! I thought you two would want some time to get acquainted.”
I nearly choked. Amelia made a noise like a cough, but she covered it with a polite smile.
“Yeah,” she managed.
No one knew. They didn’t suspect a thing. I could murder her in broad daylight and my brother would just smile and tell me to pass the ketchup.
Sabrina and Shane spouted endless optimism—“look at the view! let’s go down to the river! who’s up for s’mores?”—while me and Amelia trailed behind, cold shadows flickering between our boots.
Every word from her scraped against me. Every sideways glance made me want to throw something, just to see it break.
It didn’t help that every so often, I’d catch myself looking.
Disgusted with myself, I turned away, picking up rocks and hurling them into the river. Each splash was a shot of adrenaline, cold and clean, but it did nothing to clear the thoughts in my head.
After a while, Shane drifted over, clapped me on the shoulder. “You good, man? You seem… I don’t know. You okay?”
I shrugged him off. “Fine. Just not big on forced group bonding.”
“Ha. I hear that.” He dropped his voice. “Between you and me, Sabrina’s been planning this trip for months. She thinks nature’ll make us all best friends, but I think she’s more nervous that you’ll scare her off.”
I glanced at Amelia. She was quietly talking with Sabrina, voice so soft I couldn’t catch the words.
When we regrouped, Sabrina was full of plans. “Tomorrow, we do rock climbing but tonight? Movie night, pizza, and then maybe some drinks. I want to hear all your wildest stories, Caiden.”
Great. Nothing I wanted more than to sit around telling military stories while Amelia listened in the dark.
But I played along. We all went back to the cabin, took turns with the shower. When Amelia passed by me in the narrow hallway, shoulder brushing my arm, I felt it all the way down to my elbow.
Neither of us said a word.
At dinner, everyone tried to pretend we were normal. I drank two beers, maybe three, just to give my hands something to do.
Sabrina recounted a story about getting lost in the woods as a kid. Amelia actually laughed, a quick, pained sound, and for a second, she looked at me like she wanted me dead.
I smirked into my bottle. She’d have to try harder than that.
Afterwards, when Shane and Sabrina left to go clean up the kitchen, I found myself alone with her in the living room, shadows trembling along the wood-planked floor.
I waited. Knew she’d speak first.
“You’re the same as always,” she said, voice harsh and low. “Still trying to make everyone else as miserable as you are.”
I let the anger rise, boiling up from the old place. “That’s rich, coming from you. Last I checked, you were queen of freezing everyone out. You like it, don’t you? Being the victim.”
Her eyes flared. “Fuck you,” she whispered, but it was a hiss, not a plea.
“Already did,” I shot back, not even sure what I meant anymore.
She recoiled, color draining, but her chin didn’t waver. “Keep it up, Baxter. Just try me.”
I leaned closer, not really meaning to, but unable to stop the gravity. “Baby, you wouldn’t survive ten minutes alone with me.”
Her laugh was hollow as a grave. “Wouldn’t want to.”
But her breath came quick, nostrils flaring. Like she did want something. Like if I reached out, she’d let me touch her throat.
I stood up, looming over her, fists tight at my sides. She didn’t flinch. Respect, in a sick way.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” I said, voice controlled but barely. “We pretend for them. But you start shit with me again, I won’t hold back.”
She nodded, lips pressed thin, and for half a second the hatred between us felt like the only thing alive in the room. Feral as a starving dog.
I walked away, slamming the door behind me.
Outside, the cold bit into my ears, but it was nothing compared to the heat coiling in my spine.
I hated her. I wanted to see her bleed, and I wanted to put my mouth on her skin. I wanted to make her say my fucking name. I wanted to survive this trip without giving anything away. I was wired, on edge, every nerve tuned to her frequency.
She knew it, too. I could see it in the way she didn’t back down, in the way her eyes tracked me across the room.
We weren’t done. Not even close. Let Shane and Sabrina play at being happy campers. Me and Amelia, our story was dirtier, messier. More fun.
And I was ready to let it burn.
Night came fast in the mountains. It flattened everything, made the world smaller, like the cold had come to close its fist around us.
You could feel the darkness pressing in through the windows, aching against the glass, hungry to get inside.
The only light was from the fire and a couple of overhead bulbs that sputtered and buzzed.
We gravitated back to the lounge after dinner, because none of us wanted to admit how tired or fucked up we’d gotten from a single day together in the wild. Shane turned on a movie and tried to be the world’s best host, making popcorn, pouring drinks, keeping the conversation fizzing.
Amelia walked in last, right when I thought maybe I’d gotten my head on straight.
She wore tight black leggings that stretched over her hips, over the lines of her thighs.
The shirt was soft, thin, clinging to her chest. The outline of her tits was impossible to ignore.
I tried, fuck me, I tried. But my eyes were heat-seeking; every inch of her body was a punch in the face.
She didn’t know what she was doing to me. Or maybe she did. Maybe that was the whole point.
If so, she was winning. Even the shame was addictive.
She took a seat at the end of the sofa, legs folded under her, hair falling over her cheek. She hugged a pillow like a shield, but it didn’t do shit to hide the way her body fit together.
Sabrina made a show of digging through her phone. “Okay, ground rules. If anyone falls asleep on movie night, they owe the group breakfast.”
Amelia smiled, just the barest twitch, the one I remembered from high school that meant she was about to get mean. “Guess Caiden’s our breakfast guy, then. Or are you planning on staying awake this time?”
Her eyes glinted, daring me.
I smirked. “I’ll stay up if the company’s worth it.”
Shane just laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. “Look, I can’t promise much, but I did spring for the highest cabin package. At these prices, they should have housekeepers to tuck us in.”
I grunted, more sound than laugh. My gaze kept snagging on Amelia, like I was trapped in some fucked-up gravity field.
Every time she shifted, the shirt moved with her, nipples visible against the fabric for a heartbeat, then gone.
My mouth was dry. My hands itched to do something.
Grab a drink, crush a glass, maybe even close over her throat.
You don’t get to want that. Not with her. Not after everything.
Still, I watched.
The longer we all sat there, the worse it got. Sabrina wanted to play games, dragged out a deck of cards, making us do “icebreaker questions.” Shane steered every answer into a joke, but all I could think about was the pulse in my jaw, how every muscle in my neck locked up whenever Amelia spoke.
“What’s your most irrational fear?” Sabrina asked at one point. She looked at me, then Amelia.
Amelia’s voice broke the silence. “Drowning. I hate water. Just being under it. Not breathing.”
I remembered the time I shoved her at the lake, all those years ago. Watched her go under, gasping like a fish, eyes wild. She never forgave me for that. Not that I blamed her.
Shane’s eyes landed on me. “What about you, Caiden?”
“Losing control,” I said, and if I’d had a knife I could’ve carved the words into my own skin.
Amelia’s gaze cut to me.
You want to see what happens when I do lose it? I almost said it out loud.
But I kept the mask up. I had to.
At one point, I went for another beer in the kitchen. She followed, of course she did, stalking me like prey.
We were alone in the narrow galley, counters catching gold from the hallway lamp. Her back was to the fridge; she looked at me like she wanted to peel something raw off my bones.
“You keep staring,” she said, voice a whisper. “You want something?”
I stepped closer, letting the door fall shut behind me. “Not from you.”
“Liar.” Her lips barely moved. The challenge made my pulse stutter.
I could smell her. My hands braced on either side of her, trapping her for just a second.
“I don’t want you,” I lied. “Not in any way that’s nice.”
She swallowed. “Good. I’d hate to see you try.”
I let my gaze rake over her. She stiffened. I knew she felt it. My disgust, my need, the thing between us that had never really died, just gotten sicker. It’s been a fucking while too since I’ve been this close to an attractive women, since my ex kicked out.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I hissed, stepping away before I did something irreversible.
But even as I walked off, I could feel her eyes drilling holes in my back.
Back in the lounge, the fire burned low, shadows licking at the walls. Shane and Sabrina cuddled up on the loveseat, oblivious to the war happening six feet away.
Amelia watched the flames and pretended not to notice me watching her.
But she did.
We all pretended so fucking hard.
The movie ended. Sabrina and Shane peeled off to claim the “honeymoon suite.” Their laughter faded down the hall.
Me and Amelia, left in the half-dark.
She stood up, hugging herself, eyes flicking over me with something like hate. Or want. Or both.
I blocked her path on purpose.
She glared. “Move.”
I didn’t.
“What, Langston? You scared?”
She glared harder. “I’ve survived worse.”
“Oh, I know.”
Her jaw trembled, just for a second, before she leaned in close enough for me to smell the heat on her skin, her anger.
“You think I’m scared of you?” she spat, barely holding it together.
I let the words slow, drip like poison.
“You should be.”
But I didn’t touch her. Didn’t even breathe.
She shoved past me, brushing my arm, a quick scrape of nails through my shirt. It lingered.
I chased it, all the way to my room.
I slammed the door. Sat on the edge of the bed. Looked down at my hands. Still shaking.
The darkness pressed in and refused to let go. Somewhere in the house, I heard her door shut. Echoed in my teeth. We were both prisoners of this. We always had been.