Last Sparkler (Ironcliff Falls #9)

Chapter One

The silence in the cab is a physical weight, a velvet shroud tightening around my throat until my pulse is the only sound left.

It reminds me of the thick, recycled air in a submarine, where every breath feels like a conscious choice to use up what little remains.

Outside the passenger window, the Virginia wilderness transforms into a dizzying streak of emerald and slate as we climb.

We climb deep into the Blue Ridge Mountains, the truck’s engine straining against the vertical miles we’re putting between ourselves and the life we spent three years building, and then dismantling.

The dashboard clock glows with a steady, clinical light, announcing two in the afternoon.

Beside it, the digital thermometer reads seventy-five degrees, a temperature that should suggest comfort but instead feels like a humid weight against my ribs.

To any observer, it's a quintessential summer day, the kind of afternoon meant for rural parades and cold glass bottles.

Heat presses into my ribs, a silent command to keep my breaths small and quiet.

I don't want to be the one to break the stillness Emmett has worked so hard to maintain.

I steal a glance at his profile, studying his architectural angles and deliberate restraint.

His jaw remains set with such force that a small muscle jumps rhythmically in his cheek, a silent metronome for his internal state.

His hands, large and marked by the faint white lines of old scars, are draped over the leather steering wheel at ten and two.

He has not looked in my direction since we reversed out of the driveway, yet a gravitational force so immense that I have forgotten how to orbit anything else.

My shoulder aches to bridge the few inches between us, to feel the heart of him against my skin, even if it burns.

"We are almost there," he says.

His voice is a low, gravelly rasp that travels through the leather upholstery and settles into the base of my spine.

It's the first time he has spoken in three hours. I flinch, a microscopic movement that would be invisible to anyone else, but Emmett sees everything. He doesn’t ask; he diagnoses my fear like a rot he intends to excise.

But for a second, his grip on the wheel tightens until his knuckles go white, and I wonder if he’s diagnosing his own hunger, too.

"You are shaking, Ava." He doesn’t ask; he diagnoses my fear like a rot he intends to excise.

"It's just the mountain air," I lie, my voice sounding brittle and thin against the humming engine. "The temperature drops as we gain elevation."

"It's seventy-five degrees." He finally turns his head, his eyes the color of the Atlantic during a gale, dark and turbulent enough to swallow a person whole.

He reaches across the center console, his fingers wrapping around my wrist with an absolute grip without being cruel.

He pulls my hand toward him, resting it firmly on his thigh.

I can feel the heat of him through the heavy denim of his jeans, a steady, grounding thrum that feels like an anchor and a shackle all at once.

“You are not cold. You are afraid,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing a slow, possessive circle over the pulse point of my wrist.

I cannot answer him. To speak would be to validate the terror that keeps us in a perverse kind of rhythm.

We once had a different beat, a soft, easy pulse of shared laughter and midnight whispers, but the tempo of our lives has become jagged.

We are drifting into a silence so loud it carries a threat of violence.

This retreat, marketed as a final attempt at stability, feels less like a vacation and more like a formal sentencing.

"Look at me," he commands.

I turn my head slowly, terrified that a sudden movement might cause the mask to slip.

I have spent months perfecting the role of the devoted wife, a facade designed to hide the hollow ache where my identity once resided.

The road ahead is a ribbon of asphalt disappearing into a tunnel of ancient, overhanging oaks.

The sunlight filters through the canopy in fragmented patches, casting strobe-like shadows across his face.

"This week is going to fix us," he declares. It's a decree, not a hope, because Emmett does not hope for outcomes; he demands them. "No more silence. No more looking for exits that don’t exist. Just you and me, the mountains, and the truth. Can you handle the truth, Ava?"

"I am here, am I not?"

He holds my gaze a second too long, his eyes darkening with a hunger that makes the humid air in the cab feel even tighter. “Yes,” he says, his voice dropping to a low vibration. “You are. And I intend to keep you here.” He smiles, though the expression never migrates to his eyes.

It's the grin of a predator who has successfully cornered his prize.

He squeezes my wrist once before releasing it to navigate a sharp hairpin turn.

The truck leans into the curve, tires complaining against the hot pavement, as a wooden sign appears through the foliage.

It's carved with the image of a plummeting waterfall and the words "Ironcliff Falls Retreat. " A place to rediscover what matters.

The tires transition from asphalt to gravel, the crunching sound signaling a change in the world’s texture.

The whistle of the pines is lost beneath a low-frequency hum, a sound so deep I feel it in my teeth before I actually hear it.

It's the falls. They are hidden for now behind a dense curtain of rock and hemlock, but their presence is massive and undeniable.

They sound like a constant, rhythmic roar, a relentless force that never stops falling and never stops eroding the stone beneath it.

Emmett parks the truck in a secluded lot near the vintage camper section.

He kills the ignition, and the sudden absence of the motor makes the roar of the water feel ten times louder.

He does not exit the vehicle immediately.

He sits there, staring through the windshield at the wall of green, his breathing deep and synchronized with the environment.

"Do you remember our first Fourth of July?" he asks.

The memory hits me with the force of a physical blow.

We were in the city, trapped in an unbearable heatwave.

We had spent the day on a rooftop, drinking cheap wine and watching the sky explode in bursts of color.

He had held me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder, promising me that as long as we were together, nothing else mattered.

I had believed him then. I had wanted to be his.

I had not realized that being his meant losing the ability to be anything else.

"I remember," I say quietly.

"We are going to find that rhythm again," he says, his voice taking on a dark, obsessive edge. "I don’t care what it takes or who we have to break to get back there. You are mine, Ava. That is the only truth that exists in these mountains."

He steps out of the truck and slams the door, sounding like a gunshot in the stillness of the woods.

I remain in the seat for a moment, watching my reflection in the side mirror.

My hair is pulled back tight, my face pale, and my eyes look haunted.

I look like a woman standing on a trapdoor, waiting for the man she loves to pull the lever.

I open the door and step out into the thin mountain air.

The atmosphere here is sharp, carrying the scent of damp moss and old stone.

It feels like it's already unraveling me.

I take a step toward the tailgate to help with the bags, but Emmett is already there, hauling our heavy suitcases out with effortless, predatory grace.

He looks over at me while I lean against the tailgate, the sun positioned directly behind him, casting his face into deep shadow, making him appear like a dark god carved from the mountain itself.

Turning, he leans against the tailgate next to me, nodding toward a weathered sign at the trailhead that warns travelers about the wilderness ahead. "The choice is literal here, Ava. We step past that kiosk, and the life we dismantled stays in the truck. We don't bring it with us."

I walk toward it, my legs feeling heavy and disconnected from my body.

There are two maps pinned to the weathered board, protected by a layer of cracked plexiglass.

One is marked in a violent, aggressive red: The Red Trail, The Path of Identity.

The description is brief: For those seeking a solo purpose and the strength of the individual.

The other is a deep, bruised blue: The Blue Trail, Unity Row.

The description makes my stomach flip: For couples fighting to salvage broken bonds, a path of shared labor and total transparency.

I reach out, my finger hovering over the Red Trail.

I can almost feel the pull of it, the idea of walking into those woods alone, of hearing my own thoughts without the constant, overwhelming frequency of Emmett’s presence.

I want to know who Ava is when she is not half of a whole.

I want to know if I still exist when no one is watching me.

The forest beyond the red marker is dense with ferns and shadowed paths that lead toward the higher peaks.

A shadow falls over the map. Emmett is standing behind me, so close that I can feel the heat radiating from his chest. The scent of him, cedar, rain, and something sharper, more dangerous, overwhelms the pine needles.

He does not touch me, but the air between us crackles with static.

I find myself leaning back, just a fraction, until my shoulders brush the solid wall of his chest. His hand reaches over my shoulder...

“You are looking at the wrong trail,” he whispers against the shell of my ear, his breath a warm, terrifying promise.

"Maybe the wreckage is all that is left," I say, the words slipping out before I can censor them.

Emmett turns me around, his hands gripping my shoulders. His touch is firm, bordering on painful, forcing me to meet his gaze. He looks down at me, his eyes searching mine with a terrifying intensity. Around us, the pines sway in a sudden gust of wind, their needles hissing like a warning.

"Then we will forge something new from the scraps," he says. "But we are doing it together. There is no Red Trail. There is only the Blue. There is only us."

He lets go of me and grabs the handles of our bags, heading toward the row of vintage campers nestled in the trees.

I stand there for a second, looking back at the Red Trail.

The path looks dark, inviting, and utterly forbidden.

I think of the falls, the way the water never stops falling, the way the current pulls everything down with it into the abyss.

I turn and follow him because I have no choice.

In Emmett’s world, the only path is the one he walks, and I am the shadow that trails behind him.

We reach our camper, a polished silver Airstream that looks like a bullet caught in the trees.

It's beautiful and tiny, a metal cage designed for enforced intimacy.

There is nowhere to hide in a space this small; there are no corners to tuck away the secrets we both have been keeping.

Emmett unlocks the door and stands aside, gesturing for me to enter.

"Welcome home, Ava," he says.

I step inside. The air is stale, smelling of wax and old upholstery.

The door clicks shut behind me, the sound of the latch final and heavy.

Outside, the roar of Ironcliff Falls echoes through the thin metal walls, a hard truth that I can no longer ignore.

You cannot build a ‘we’ until you rediscover the "me.

" But as Emmett steps into the tiny space, his presence filling every inch of the room, I realize that ‘me’ might already be buried too deep to find.

The Fourth of July is a day away. I have seven days to bridge the divide, and seven days to survive the man I love.

I sit down on the narrow bed, my hands shaking in my lap.

Emmett moves to the small kitchenette, his back to me, but I know he is watching my reflection in the polished chrome of the toaster. He is always watching.

"I am going to get some wood for the fire," he says, not turning around. "Stay here. Don’t go near the water yet. It's deeper than it looks."

"I am not going anywhere, Emmett."

"I know you are not."

He leaves, and for the first time in hours, I am alone. I look through the small window at the patch of blue sky visible through the trees. I think about the Red Trail. I think about the falls. I think about the small, serrated knife I tucked into the lining of my suitcase when he wasn't looking.

I start to cry, not because I am sad, but because I am terrified that the silence is safer than the honesty he is about to demand.

The rhythm has started, and I don’t think I know the steps anymore.

I walk to the suitcase and run my hand over the hidden bulge in the fabric.

He thinks he removed all the exits, but he forgot that some paths are carved with blood rather than ink.

I hear a branch snap just outside the window.

I freeze, my breath hitching in my throat.

I expect to see Emmett, but when I peer through the glass, there is only the swaying forest and a single, red ribbon tied to a tree branch that wasn't there five minutes ago.

It's a marker for the Red Trail, and it's moving toward the water.

The roar of the falls changes pitch, sounding less like water and more like a voice calling my name.

I realize then that the retreat isn't just a place to fix a marriage; It's a place where things go to disappear.

I am not just surviving Emmett anymore. I am going to have to survive the mountain itself, and the part of me that still wants to be lost in him.