The Part Where We Don’t Touch Her
THE PART WHERE WE DON’T TOUCH HER
KNIGHT
The cabin looks like the kind of place serial killers dump bodies.
Which, naturally, means it’s perfect for us.
Tall pines crowd the dirt driveway, branches clawing at the sky. The structure itself is small, dark wood, a deep porch, a metal roof, and absolutely no neighbors. Not a gas station. Not a mailbox. Just trees, crickets, and the low hum of my paranoia.
I kill the headlights and let the engine tick cool in the silence.
Beside me, Lark exhales. “Wow. Peak murder vibes.”
“This place is off-grid, hardened, and unregistered,” I say. “You want a spa weekend, ask someone else.”
She smirks. “We can do spa treatments with knives.”
I don’t respond to that.
Mostly because my brain doesn’t have room for anything but the last three hours: ditching my car, grabbing a new one, changing routes, cutting through back roads while Arrow, Gage, and Ozzy radioed updates about the bounty network.
Someone posted Knight Hayes and Lark Dawson to an encrypted board with a price tag that made even Render swear.
Face capture. High-priority. Interfered with operations.
We’ve been promoted to “problems.”
Lark swings the passenger door open and steps out. The forest air is cold. Sharp. It smells like pine and damp moss and impending bad decisions.
She stretches, arms overhead, shirt riding up enough to flash a strip of bare stomach.
I do not look.
I look at the cabin.
I grab our go-bags we packed before the mission, our laptops, and Lark’s bat. Lark tromps up the front steps like she’s on a weekend getaway. There’s a key in the agreed hiding place—under a fake-looking rock by the third stair.
“Welcome to Casa Oh-Shit,” Lark says as I unlock the door.
The cabin is… nicer inside than I expect.
Small, yeah, but clean. Living room with a couch and battered coffee table. Tiny kitchen in the corner with a gas stove, fridge humming quietly, a couple of cabinets. There’s a woodstove against one wall, already stacked with kindling and logs. A single hallway leads deeper in.
Someone’s stocked the place.
There’s a crate of bottled water by the fridge, bags of chips and canned soup in the pantry, clothes in the closet, and a handwritten note taped to the cabinet.
I peel it off.
Knight,
Stocked well with everything you need.
No wifi. Just Starlink. Stay put. Lay low. Please don’t blow anything up.
P.S. Yes, there’s only one bed. No, that wasn’t an accident.
— Ranger Cole
Lark appears at my shoulder like a nosy cat. “Only one bed?” she echoes, way too delighted.
I fold the note and shove it in my pocket. “Apparently. I’ll take the couch.”
“That thing?” she says, pointing to the tiny leather loveseat in the center of the living room. It doesn’t look like it could handle Lark comfortably, let alone me.
I can feel my headache forming already.
“It’s fine.” I drop the bags by the couch. “You take the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“We don’t even know what the bed looks like yet,” she argues. “What if it’s lumpy and murdery and the couch is amazing?”
“Beds are designed for sleeping. Couches are designed for regret naps.”
She snorts. “Fine. Let’s go inspect the sleeping situation.”
I should say no.
I should unpack and make sure this place is secure.
Instead, I follow her down the short hall, every sense strung tight.
There’s one door on the right—tiny bathroom with a shower stall, sink, and toilet. Straight ahead is the bedroom.
Lark pushes the door open with a dramatic flourish. “Ta-da.”
The bed is a queen. Clean sheets. One blanket. Two pillows. Nothing fancy, but it looks… soft. Comfortable.
Too comfortable.
There’s a small dresser, a lamp on the nightstand, and blackout curtains over the window. No TV. No clock. No electronics. Just four walls and a mattress big enough for two adults to lie very far apart.
Or not.
Lark turns around slowly, eyes sparkling. “Well, well, well.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
“One bed,” she coos. “Tragic.”
“You’re taking it.”
Her brows lift. “Is that a command?”
“Yes.”
She bites the inside of her cheek, like she’s holding back a smile. “You gonna pin me down and make me obey, Knight?”
My brain shorts out for a second.
I picture it—the weight of her, the feel of her wrists under my hands, the way she’d arch and—
Nope.
Abort.
“I’m not touching you,” I say, voice too tight. “You’re Gage’s little sister.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, we’re really still doing this?”
“Yes.”
“You know I’m an adult, right? Twenty-four. Tax-paying. Credit scored. Highly capable.”
“Doesn’t change who you are.”
“Then who am I?” she presses, stepping closer.
Too close.
I can see every detail—freckles across her nose, the smudge of eyeliner at the corner of her eye, the faint bruise at her wrist from the guard she clocked with the bat. She’s flushed from the drive, from adrenaline, from the fact that we’re hiding from an entire slice of the criminal underworld.
Her energy buzzes.
Mine… buzzes right back.
“You’re trouble,” I say.
She smiles slow. “Yeah. And?”
“And I’m not adding ‘slept with best friend’s sister while on the run from bounty hunters’ to my list of sins.”
“Yet.”
“Ever,” I snap.
Her grin widens. “You keep saying ‘I’m not touching you’ like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
I am.
Desperately.
I blow out a breath and step back. “Get settled. I’m going to check the perimeter.”
“Translation,” she says. “You’re going outside to growl at trees.”
“Stay inside,” I tell her. “Lock the door behind me. Don’t open it unless it’s my voice and I say the code word.”
“Code word?”
I think for a second. “Bat.”
She cracks up. “You’re obsessed with my bat.”
“It’s a hazard.”
“It’s a lifestyle.”
I cut myself off before I say something worse and head back down the hall.
Outside, the air is colder. The sky’s bruised-purple, stars just starting to emerge.
I circle the cabin, scanning the tree line, the dirt drive, the ground for any tire tracks that aren’t ours. Nothing. No second set of footprints. No lens glint from the dark.
Maddox was telling the truth. This place is off the grid. On a map, it barely exists.
Good.
We need somewhere quiet.
We need somewhere boring.
We need somewhere no one knows our names.
The problem is, I’m locked in that “somewhere” with the one person on earth who makes me forget how to breathe properly.
I finish the perimeter and head back to the front door. Lark lets me in and I lock the door behind me.
Lark heads to the kitchen, barefoot, and rummages through the cabinets.
She’s taken off her jacket. Her tank top is black, thin, and clinging to places my brain should not be cataloging.
“Good news,” she says. “We won’t starve. Bad news? Cole buys like a divorced prepper. We’ve got canned beans, canned soup, canned chili, and—wait for it—canned bread. Who cans bread?”
“Maddox’s security specialists.”
“Yeah, now it makes sense.”
She pops open a pack of instant ramen like she’s discovered gold. “We feast.”
I move past her to the counter, putting a little more distance between us than is strictly necessary. “We keep lights low after dark. No loud music, no visible activity from outside. We don’t know how many people saw that bounty posting, so we assume worst-case scenario.”
“Which is…?”
“They’re already looking.”
She’s quiet for a beat.
When I glance over, her expression has shifted. Not scared. But… serious. Softer around the edges. “Hey,” I say, testing the waters, “you good?”
She exhales. “Define good.”
“Lark.”
She fiddles with the ramen packet edge. “I mean… I’m great, obviously. On the run with my favorite morally flexible nerd, hiding in a murder cabin, hunted by faceless criminals who want to kill us or sell us to the highest bidder. It’s like my Pinterest board came to life.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
Her flippancy is a shield.
I recognize it because I live behind one too.
I turn fully toward her. “Are you scared?”
She starts to say something sarcastic. I can see it on her lips. Then she exhales instead. “A little,” she admits. “Not of them.” She flicks her gaze toward the window. “Just… of what it means.”
“What what means?”
She gestures vaguely between us. “You. Me. This. It was supposed to be fun. Hacks and bats and pissing you off. Now there’s a number attached to our faces in some sick bounty market and you look like you’re already planning my funeral.”
“I’m not,” I say, more sharply than I intend. “I’m planning how to make sure you never need one.”
Something in her eyes flickers.
I step closer before I think better of it. “We’ll handle this,” I say quietly. “We always do. You’re not alone in this. Not anymore.”
Her throat bobs. “Yeah, but… what if they get to you? I’m not… I’m not joking about the fear, Knight. I know I act like I don’t care about anything, but I do. And I—” She cuts herself off, eyes darting away.
The instinct to touch her hits me so hard it almost knocks me back.
I give in to exactly one fraction of it.
I rest my hand on her shoulder.
Her skin is warm. My palm is too big and clumsy and I feel like I’m holding a live wire.
She looks up at me.
There’s no joke there now. No teasing. Just open, raw worry.
Something cracks in my chest.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” I say, low and firm. “Do you understand me? If anyone touches you, they don’t walk away.”
Her breath catches. She whispers, “You can’t promise that.”
“I just did.”
For a beat, we stand there in the too-bright little kitchen, wrapped in this slow-growing tension that isn’t just fear or adrenaline.
It’s… more.
Deeper.
Hotter.
I realize my thumb is brushing small circles over her shoulder.
I should stop.
I don’t.
Her gaze drops to my mouth.
My pulse spikes.
Nope.
Abort.
I step back, breaking contact like I’ve been burned. I turn to the cabinets. “We should eat. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we figure out who’s running that network and how deep this shit goes.”
“Right.” Her voice is a little breathless. “Food. Sleep. Totally.”
I find a pot, fill it with water, light the gas stove. The burner flares blue.
We move around each other in close quarters, bodies bumping occasionally, each contact sending a jolt through me I pretend not to notice.
Her shoulder brushes my back.
Her fingers graze mine when I pass her a bowl.
Her laugh is softer now, but still there, like she’s trying to force things back to normal.
They aren’t.
They never will be again.
By the time we’ve eaten and cleaned up, the sky outside is fully dark. The forest feels like a looming wall beyond the windows.
I kill most of the lights, leaving only the lamp by the couch.
Lark leans against the doorway, arms crossed, hair down now in loose waves. “So,” she says. “Sleeping arrangements.”
“You’re taking the bed.”
“And you’re taking the couch because… chivalry? Guilt? Fear of Gage?”
“Yes.”
She studies me, head tilted. “You know he’s not going to show up here and punch you for sharing a bed with me, right?”
“He might.”
“That’d be funny.”
“It would not.”
She steps closer, voice dropping into something between tease and something else. “What if I don’t want the bed by myself?”
My body responds before my brain can shut it down.
Every muscle tightens. Heat coils low.
I keep my voice steady. “That’s not an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I say, realizing too late how honest I’m about to be, “I don’t trust myself to sleep next to you and not…”
I trail off.
She leans in. “Not what?”
I could lie.
I don’t.
“Not touch you.”
The words land in the air like a flare.
Her lips part.
For a long, dangerous moment, we just stare at each other.
Then she smiles, slow and wicked. “Maybe I don’t want you to not touch me.”
I close my eyes for half a second. This girl is going to be the death of me. “We’re not doing this tonight,” I say roughly. “You’ve had a run, a scare, and three cups of gas station coffee. Your nervous system is lying to you.”
“You’re deflecting.”
“I’m surviving.”
She searches my face. Whatever she sees there makes her sigh. “Fine,” she says, backing off half a step. “But just so you know, if I have nightmares, I’m climbing into your bed—I mean couch—and you don’t get a vote.”
“Duly noted.”
We stand there a second longer, the air thick with everything we’re not doing.
Finally, she huffs out a laugh. “Goodnight, Knight.”
“Goodnight, Lark.”
She disappears down the hall, and I’m left alone with the hum of the fridge, the creak of the wood, and the loud, annoying thud of my own heart.
I grab a pillow and a folded blanket from the linen closet, toss them on the couch, and lie down.
The cushions are narrow. Lumpy. My feet hang over the arm. A coil of a spring digs into my ribs.
I stare at the ceiling.
I think about bounty boards and darknet servers and men who trade lives like currency.
I think about Lark, barefoot in the kitchen, trying not to admit she’s scared.
I think about the way she looked at me when I told her I’d protect her.
I think: You are in so much trouble, Hayes.
But under that, deeper:
I think: I would burn this whole forest down before I let them touch her.
Somewhere down the hall, I hear the bedroom door click softly, the creak of the bed as she climbs in. A beat later, her voice drifts faint from the gloom.
“Knight?”
“Yeah?”
A pause.
“Don’t die, okay?”
I swallow. “I won’t,” I say into the dark. “Not while you’re here.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then, quietly: “Good. Because if anyone’s gonna kill you, it’s me.”
I huff out a laugh. “Go to sleep, Birdie.”
“Night.”
Eventually, exhaustion drags me under.
My last conscious thought is a vow I don’t say out loud:
Whoever put our faces on that list?
They’re going to learn what it feels like to beg.
And I’m not sure if it’ll be for mercy—
Or for it to be over.