Chapter Two #2
Somewhere inside, Hooper would be opening the carrier, unwrapping the blankets, reading the note. There would be questions. There would be anger, or maybe disbelief. Maybe, if the universe was feeling especially cruel, there would be relief.
I hoped he would see the part about the singing. I hoped he would try.
The world didn’t end. The wind didn’t change. But a sound somewhere deep in my chest unclenched, a fist finally letting go.
I watched the porch for another long minute, waiting for some kind of sign. There was none. No one came after me.
I let myself think, for a second, that maybe in another timeline I would have been inside that house, holding the baby instead of running from him.
But not this one.
I waited until I couldn’t hear anything but my own breathing—ragged and white in the dark, ugly as a broken windshield. The light in the hallway flickered as Hooper’s body passed by, then steadied.
One man came out, looked around, and then went back inside. No one poked their head around the door to check for movement. The house settled, taking Emilio with it, pulling him into that warm, bright gravity like he’d been meant for it all along.
I stood watch for longer than I needed to, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe an hour. My body’s sense of time had been fucked for weeks. The wind scoured my face; my hands felt like bags of dead mice, clumsy and mottled, but I kept them jammed under my armpits and let the rest of me go numb.
I kept thinking I’d get spotted, that some ancient ranch hand with a hunting rifle would step out for a smoke and see me shivering at the edge of the world, but I was invisible, as always.
When I was certain they wouldn’t come outside again, I slid backward along the tree line, careful to place each foot in the hollows I’d scouted earlier, moving in the shadow of the fence until the house was just a shape behind me.
Every so often I’d pause, crouch, listen, checking for headlights or the distant chuff of a truck engine. All clear.
At the crest of the little rise, I stopped. My legs threatened to collapse, but I wouldn’t let them. I made myself look back, just once.
The house was a wound in the black, bleeding out into the snow. I thought of Emilio inside, thought of Hooper with his hands on either side of the bassinet, his dumb, beautiful smile as he figured it out.
I felt it then—the hurt of the thing, the severing. It was not the pain of losing, but the pain of saving. I let myself stand in it for exactly three seconds, then turned my back for good.
The rest of the way was just survival. Down the slope, past the old barn and then along the frozen rut of an old service road.
I moved slow, dragging my bad foot, the numbness creeping up my ankle like ice water poured down the inside of my pants.
The Subaru was parked behind a berm, camouflaged by the brush and by my own shitty spray paint job.
Nobody would look for it, not yet.
I keyed the door open and slumped into the driver’s seat. The interior still smelled faintly of sour milk and the sweet, chemical stink of a baby wipe packet torn open and left to dry out in the cup holder.
I pressed my forehead against the steering wheel and breathed, steady in and out, until the shivers slowed. My brain wanted to shut off, but the rest of me kept making lists: what to do next, where to go, who else to avoid.
After a minute I turned the ignition, ready for the engine to rebel or the battery to click in protest. Instead, the Subaru caught on the first try—miracle or mercy, I didn’t care which.
I sat there with the heater blowing in my face, feeling the ache come back into my hands and feet, the pins and needles less forgiving than the cold. My eyes burned. I wiped them with the back of my hand, then again, harder.
I should have left. Should have merged onto the main road, headed south or west or anywhere that wasn’t here. Instead, I lingered. Not to look back—never that—but to be sure.
I watched the house from far away, watched the way the light stayed constant, how nothing inside changed or dimmed. There were no sirens, no angry shouts. Just the steady, gentle hum of a place that had already swallowed its surprise and was busy turning it into something normal.
I imagined Jojo arguing for a bath, Rawley grunting about security, Hooper refusing to hand the baby over, cradling him against his chest like he was made of gold and napalm.
I let the engine idle, the heat and the fatigue making my head spin. I reached into my coat, found the last two painkillers in the bottle, and dry-swallowed them. They stuck in my throat, but I didn’t care. I only wanted the edge to come off, just for an hour.
I thought about what I’d written in the letter, the way my pen shook so bad I had to print in block capitals, how I’d re-read the sentence about singing ten times before I left it in.
I remembered Emilio’s face as I set him down, the brief flicker of his eyes, the way he curled one hand around my thumb before I could uncurl his fingers and leave.
I let myself feel it. Let it hit me all at once, like standing up too fast in a room without windows. There was a taste in my mouth like a penny pressed to the tongue. There was a sharpness in my chest that would never, ever go away.
The plan was to keep driving until Montana was a rumor behind me. To vanish, like a good omega, and leave nothing behind but the memory of what I’d given up.
But for a few minutes, I stayed put, engine humming, hands wrapped around the steering wheel, waiting for the world to catch up.
Then, when the time felt right, I let go of the brake, put the Subaru in gear, and drove away. The house behind me glowed a little smaller every second, but it stayed lit.
Emilio was safe.
The rest didn’t matter.