Chapter 21 Rhett
Rhett
She turns back toward us, and I forget how to breathe.
The mist pools around her feet like liquid starlight, and the path she just walked shimmers faintly—like the forest is still glowing from her touch somehow. Her hair catches the filtered light, dark waves framing a face I’ve memorized a thousand times—but somehow, it looks different now. Changed.
God, she’s never looked more beautiful.
And then reality crashes back in like cold water.
What the hell was she thinking, just walking away like that? No explanation, no warning, just... gone. Into a forest we don’t know, toward something we can’t see, while we stood there like idiots watching her disappear.
My hands clench at my sides, heat building beneath my skin. The familiar spiral starts—fear masquerading as anger, protectiveness trying to translate itself into control. She could have been hurt. She could have gotten lost. She could have—
A crow caws overhead.
Sharp. Deliberate. Off.
I look up automatically, tracking the sound to a thick branch maybe thirty feet away. Black wings shift, settle. Dark eyes that seem too intelligent. Too focused.
It’s watching us. Watching her.
That’s when I notice Thane.
He’s stepped forward, silver eyes following my line of sight, head tilted at an angle that makes my spine prickle. Every line of his body has gone tense, alert—like he’s listening to something the rest of us can’t hear.
The bird shifts again, and instinct kicks in hard and fast.
We’re being watched. Something’s off. And then it hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest.
“Shit—the cars.”
The words explode out of me before I can think. Jace whips around, green eyes wide.
“Wait, what?”
“Oh my god.” Theo’s voice cracks slightly. “We left them running.”
Stellan’s voice cuts through the sudden chaos, flat and amused. “Keys are still in the ignition.”
And then we’re moving.
Jace takes off first, already laughing—that manic, breathless sound he makes when panic and relief crash into each other. “I’m gonna marry that car if it survived this,” he wheezes, dodging low branches.
Theo’s right behind him, muttering to himself in that way he does when he’s trying to process something his brain can’t quite catalogue. “It felt like the trees moved. And there was a fox. Or something fox-adjacent. Do foxes normally—”
“Theo, run now, wildlife inventory later,” I call out, pushing past him.
Wes follows last, not rushing, like this is all mildly entertaining rather than potentially catastrophic. “I’m not saying I’d kill someone over that jacket,” he murmurs. “I’m just saying I wouldn’t not.”
Gray half-runs, half-laughs beside me. “We leave running vehicles unattended next to magical forests now? Cool. That’s our thing?”
The sound of our engines grows louder as we get closer, and relief floods through me so hard my knees almost buckle. Still running. Still there. Still ours.
We burst into the clearing where we left them, and it’s like stumbling back into the normal world. Three cars, exactly where we left them, engines purring contentedly in the afternoon air.
I go straight to my truck, yanking open the driver’s door. Keys dangling from the ignition, doors unlocked—everything exactly as we abandoned it in our rush to follow her into whatever was calling.
Jace reaches his car and actually pats the roof like it’s a living thing. “Good boy. Who’s a good car? You are. Yes, you are.”
“You’re embarrassing,” Wes observes, but there’s fondness in it.
Gray’s already doing perimeter—checking doors, mirrors, anything that might be wrong. Methodical. Steady. It’s what he does when the world stops making sense—impose order wherever he can find it.
Theo slows down, no longer worried about the car. He’s processing something bigger; I can see it in the way his shoulders haven’t relaxed, the way his eyes keep drifting back toward the forest.
“It’s not just her,” he says quietly. “The forest—it’s doing things.”
I look at him, not dismissive but not ready to dive headfirst into whatever magical theory he’s building either. “What kind of things?”
Theo’s eyes track the tree line again. “Like it knows us,” he says. “Like it’s been waiting.”
He goes quiet, breathing a little too hard. His gaze flicks between us like he’s hoping someone else will say it first.
Then he half-laughs—nervous, a little breathless.
“That’s weird, right? Like... forests don’t usually do that?”
Jace doesn’t miss a beat. “Cool. Great. Love that. Everyone still in their original bodies? Fantastic.”
I don’t answer. I’m too busy wondering if the forest really has been waiting—and what the hell it’s waiting for.
Wes is already near the car when he stops short. Opens the back door.
He stares at something inside, just long enough for me to notice.
“Did one of you move my jacket?” he asks, voice low. Not angry. Just… off.
Gray looks up from the passenger side. “Nope.”
Wes doesn’t say anything else. He just smooths the fabric back into place like that’ll make it better.
He might’ve joked on the way back to the cars, but he’s not joking now.
I round the front of my truck, trying to shake it off—and that’s when I see it.
A feather.
Caught behind the grill. Small. Black. Wrong.
I pull it free. Glossy. Sharp at the tip.
How did this get here?
When I glance up, Wes is already watching me.
Gray catches the look between us. Doesn’t say a word. Just keeps moving—but slower now. More careful.
I toss the feather aside before I can decide if I’m just being paranoid.
But the tension doesn’t lift.
The adrenaline’s fading now, leaving behind the crash that always follows. I lean against my truck and take inventory, the way I always do when the world tilts sideways.
Jace is still vibrating, laughing too hard at nothing.
Theo hasn’t spoken in thirty seconds, which might be a personal record.
Wes looks like a statue—arms crossed, unreadable, processing whatever just happened in that quiet way of his.
And Gray’s still moving, still circling, like the forest might suddenly grow teeth.
Everyone’s unraveling in their own way.
I just happen to do it quietly.
“We should go,” I say finally. Because standing here won’t change what we just saw, won’t make it make sense, won’t bring her back from whatever she found in that clearing.
Jace sighs and tosses his keys at Gray without looking. “You drive. I’m spiritually unwell.”
Gray catches them one-handed. “So unwell you’re driving Thane’s BMW?”
Jace smirks as he folds himself into the car
One by one, we pile back into our vehicles. The mood shifts, quiets, like the laughter was just a pressure valve and now we’re all settling into the weight of what comes next.
I grip the wheel tighter than I need to, checking my mirrors one more time before putting the truck in drive. I can see the BMW already moving, leading us deeper into whatever this day is becoming.
We fall in behind it, engines purring like we haven’t just stepped into something unknown.
But all I can hear is her name.
And the way the forest answered it.