Chapter Two
~ Liam ~
There are no clocks at the edge of the world.
My phone battery died somewhere east of Butte, and I smashed the face of my old Seiko against the Subaru’s door frame three weeks ago, so the only timepiece left was the moon—except even that has gone missing, hidden behind a cloudbank so thick it might as well have been buried in the backyard with the rest of my life.
The porch light bled into the yard, carving a small country of amber in the cold.
That was the whole plan: get Emilio to the one bright place for miles, set him down in the halo like a saint’s relic, and wait.
Wait for the wolves or the angels or, more likely, the man with the crooked smile and the voice that turned every room into a disaster site.
Pray he’d be the first one to the door. Pray he’d know what to do.
I counted the seconds by the shivering of my own body, each full tremor a little clock hand jumping forward.
The wind cut between the trees and left its fingerprints on my skin.
My shoes were not real shoes, just the sort of canvas slip-ons you get from the discount rack at the Goodwill, and my socks were hospital-issue.
Both were soaked. Both had failed hours ago.
It didn’t matter.
From my angle behind the big oak, I could see the bassinet at the top of the steps—a state-of-the-art number, bought on clearance in Missoula and paid for with a stolen credit card. I’d left the receipt tucked under the bassinet mattress just in case he needed to return it.
Emilio was inside the carrier, zipped into three layers of sleep-and-play, his arms folded across his chest like he’d already given up on this world.
His little hat had the ears of a bear. His face, visible only as a flash of pale in the yellow light, was pointed at the house. He hadn’t made a sound.
I had not planned for that.
The plan—such as it was—depended on him crying, on that ancient, helpless broadcast to draw someone out before the night could freeze his tiny fingers stiff. Instead he was silent, as if he’d already agreed to the terms of surrender.
Every few minutes, the house made a sound: a board stretching its spine, a choked cough from somewhere upstairs, the dry tap-tap of a dog’s nails on tile. I let each noise roll over me, then fade. The porch light never flickered. The bassinet never moved.
I tried to conjure Hooper—Tomás, technically, but he was never Tomás to me, not even in Billings—by force of will alone. I pictured him in the kitchen, hunched over a mug of whatever chemical filth he brewed in place of coffee, talking shit about the weather to a clock radio that never answered.
I imagined him at the garage bench, arms gloved to the elbow in grease, cursing some recalcitrant engine while humming a song so low and off-key it barely registered as music.
I needed him to come outside.
Needed him to notice.
Needed him to take the kid inside before the next set of headlights crested the ridge and spilled something worse than cold into the yard.
I took three steps out from behind the tree, just far enough to watch the windows for movement but not so far that I lost the protection of shadow.
My heart was already red-lining, so I let the fear do whatever it wanted.
That was the trick: don’t fight the fear.
Let it run, let it finish, and maybe you get to walk away afterward.
I thought about going to the door myself, but then I saw the outline of my own hands, trembling, bloody at the cuticles and dirt ground under every nail, and knew I couldn’t risk it.
The way my face looked in the last gas station bathroom mirror—thin, hollow-eyed, yellowed with exhaustion—if Hooper saw me before he saw Emilio, there would be no time for explanations.
Besides, I couldn’t trust myself to leave if the door actually opened.
I’d left the letter inside the bassinet, buried under the formula samples and a pack of clean onesies. The letter had taken an hour to write. I’d rehearsed it so many times that the words no longer sounded like language, just a sad .
What else was there to say?
Emilio shifted. I heard the squeak of the carrier’s plastic, or maybe I just imagined it. I wanted to run to him, but the plan was clear: if you break cover, you break the whole chain.
It occurred to me, not for the first time, that I was not the kind of person who should be making plans for anyone, let alone an infant. Let alone my own. The thought was a hot coal in my throat. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and tasted iron.
I looked back at the tree line. Nothing. No headlights, no shapes, not even a coyote. The world had stopped, as if to witness the scene in some cruel, eternal freeze-frame.
I had memorized the entire path from the gravel drive to the porch in daylight, practicing it so many times I could do it with my eyes closed.
What I hadn’t practiced was the waiting.
The standing still while your bones went brittle and your mind started flickering between past and present and all possible futures.
A gust of wind caught the porch flag and made it snap, hard, like a rifle round. I flinched, then steadied, arms crossed tight across my chest.
That was when I saw the light in the kitchen window come on.
There he was—blurred by the frosted pane but unmistakable: Hooper, bigger than any human had a right to be, moving with the careless precision of a man who believed nothing on earth could touch him.
He wore a sleeveless shirt even though the night was below zero.
His hands were already moving—wiping a mug, tossing something into the sink, the kind of useless fidget that meant he was trying not to think too hard.
I watched as he poured himself a new cup. He stood there for a long time, staring at it, then at the window, then at the empty yard. The distance between the two of us was maybe fifty feet, but it could have been measured in years. In universes.
He didn’t see the bassinet. Not yet.
The light in the hallway flicked on next. Someone else, small and quick—probably Jojo, the man Hooper had told me about, the omega who’d followed Rawley to the ends of the earth, and who now made a point of adopting every stray animal, human or otherwise, that limped into the ranch’s orbit.
I found myself hoping it would be Jojo who found Emilio. Jojo would know immediately what to do, and maybe wouldn’t look too closely at the rest of the mess. Or maybe he would, but he’d do it with mercy. I wanted mercy for Emilio, if not for myself.
The waiting expanded. The cold dug in deeper. I pressed my hands together so hard I heard the knuckles pop.
I let my thoughts go fuzzy, slipping back to the night in Billings, the night that had wrecked my ability to pretend.
Hooper had found me at the cheap hotel bar, drinking the kind of rail whiskey that erases your last name and all your regrets.
He’d smiled, bought me a better drink, and then followed me upstairs with the casual confidence of someone who expected the universe to cooperate.
He had been funny, which is not something I say about men. He’d talked about engines and guitars and the time he’d tried to rescue a coyote pup and ended up in the ER with his shirt in ribbons. He’d made me laugh. A real laugh, not the nervous kind.
We hadn’t even bothered with undressing all the way.
He’d bitten the inside of my knee, left a constellation of bruises along my hip.
His hands were huge and precise, careful where they needed to be and rough where I wanted them.
He’d made me feel safe, but not in the way of a locked door—in the way of a light on in the kitchen, the kind you leave on for someone you’re hoping will find their way home.
The morning after, I’d left before sunrise. Left because I knew I was already too far gone, and if I gave it another minute, I’d never leave. Not ever. He’d woken, maybe, found my thank-you scrawled on the pad from the nightstand. Or maybe he hadn’t cared.
Men like Hooper did not pine for half-broken, second-string omegas who cried in the shower and had never managed to fix a single thing about themselves.
Except now he had a new thing to fix, and this one had my eyes and, God help him, maybe my luck.
The light in the kitchen shut off. The world contracted to just the porch, the carrier, the last trembling hope that someone would open the door and look.
I counted to a hundred, then a hundred more.
I heard the baby this time—not loud, but a soft, high, questioning note, like he’d woken and found the universe missing the part he needed most. I had to bite down again, this time hard enough to make my eyes water.
My body wanted to run to him, to say just kidding, I’m right here, you are not abandoned, not alone.
But I didn’t move.
The porch door opened.
Hooper stepped out into the light, carrying nothing but the mug.
He paused, looked left, looked right. Even from this far I could see the way his body changed as he spotted the carrier—a jolt, a suspicion, and then a measured, practiced calm.
He put the mug down on the steps and crouched, examining the bassinet. For a second, he didn’t move.
Then he reached out, touched the handle, and lifted.
He did not make a show of checking for bombs, for traps. He just lifted the carrier, cradling it in one arm, Emilio in the other, and carried them both back inside like it was a football or a foundling or a bomb anyway, something he’d always known would end up in his hands.
The porch door clicked shut.
That was all.
Done.
I leaned my head against the tree. The bark scraped my cheek and the cold burned through my shirt, but it anchored me. I let my knees go, and I sank down slow, just a careful collapse. I didn’t let myself cry. I hadn’t earned the right yet.