Chapter 31 Aurora
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Aurora
There’s blood on my hands.
Actual blood. Warm, sticky, unmistakably real in a way that refuses to be turned into something poetic or symbolic. It sits in the lines of my skin like proof of a feeling I’m not ready to name yet.
Finn’s blood.
A few minutes ago, I was just trying to survive a sunrise in a storage unit without spiraling into existential dread, and now I’m kneeling on cold concrete with my heart trying to escape through my throat while Zane presses gauze into Finn’s side and Finn keeps talking like this is mildly inconvenient rather than objectively horrifying.
“Okay,” he says, breath tight but still threaded with that same crooked humor, “so this morning is officially off to a bad start.”
I stare at him.
He gives me a faint grin, pale around the edges but still somehow very much him. “I had expectations. Coffee. Basic survival. Maybe a strong start to the day.”
Something between a laugh and a broken sound escapes me, and I hate how fragile it sounds.
His expression shifts the moment he hears it.
Zane doesn’t look up when he says, “Aurora. Pressure.”
Right.
Yes.
Useful things. Practical things. The kind of things that keep people from bleeding out on concrete floors.
I nod quickly, even though my body feels like it’s running on a delay, and Zane guides my hand back to the gauze. The warmth beneath it makes my stomach turn, not because it’s grotesque, but because it’s too real. Too immediate. Too connected to him.
Finn flinches when I press down, and I almost pull away.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
His hand covers mine before I can move.
It’s not perfectly steady, but it’s warm, familiar in a way that makes everything else feel a little less sharp.
“Don’t be,” he murmurs. “You’re doing great.”
I blink at him because that is objectively untrue.
My hands are shaking, my chest feels too tight, and my brain keeps replaying the exact moment he stepped in front of me like it’s trying to understand things I haven’t fully processed yet.
“I hate that you got hurt—”
“No.”
Zane presses harder, and Finn winces, muttering something about hostile working conditions, but when he looks back at me, the humor fades.
“No,” he repeats, quieter this time, but somehow more certain. “Don’t do that.”
My throat tightens.
Because I saw it. I saw the man move toward me, saw the shift in his body, and then Finn was just… there. In the way. Taking the hit like it was the most natural decision in the world.
“You could have—”
“I know. And I would again.”
I look down because if I keep looking at him, I’m going to fall apart again, and I’ve already cried enough for one morning.
Finn’s thumb brushes over my hand where it’s pressed to the gauze, a small, absent motion that feels far too deliberate.
“I’m okay,” he says.
“You’re bleeding,” I reply.
“Minor detail.”
“That is not a minor detail.”
Zane leans back slightly, assessing his work. “It’ll hold for now.”
Which, coming from Zane, I assume is the medical equivalent of cautiously optimistic.
Ryder cuts in from the doorway. “How bad?”
I look up.
He stands half in shadow, shoulders squared, attention split between the outside world and what’s happening inside this small, too bright space. There’s a stillness to him that feels coiled, controlled in a way that suggests he’s already ten steps ahead of whatever comes next.
“Deep, but clean,” Zane answers. “He’ll need stitches.”
Finn exhales. “See? Clean. We love clean.”
I shouldn’t smile. I do anyway, just a little.
Ryder’s gaze shifts to me, and everything else fades.
He isn’t just assessing the situation. He’s looking at my face, my hands, the blood, the way I’m still crouched like I forgot how to stand up properly.
His expression moves. There’s a pull there. A tension that feels like it’s pulling him in two different directions at once.
He wants to come closer.
That much is obvious.
But he doesn’t.
He holds himself back with a kind of rigid control that makes it clear this is not about distance for distance’s sake. It’s about something else.
Like he’s trying to keep me out of this part of their world. He wants me close, but not in it.
The realization settles into me slowly.
He’s not just protecting me from what’s outside.
He’s trying to protect me from them too.
Or maybe from what they are when things get like this.
“Ryder?” I say softly.
His jaw shifts once. “Aurora.”
He steps in a little closer, not enough to close the space entirely, but enough that I can feel the shift.
“We need to get this over and done with,” he says.
Finn huffs a breath. “You say that like I’m choosing to be dramatic.”
“You’re bleeding on the floor,” Ryder replies flatly.
“I can do other things.”
Zane shakes his head, already reaching for the duffel. I push myself to my feet, a little too quickly, and the world tilts before settling again.
“I’m fine,” I say.
Three different expressions tell me no one believes that.
Ryder’s is sharp, unimpressed.
Zane’s is clinical.
Finn’s is somewhere between concern and amusement.
“I’m standing,” I add, which feels like a valid argument.
Zane doesn’t bother responding.
Finn starts to stand and nearly regrets it halfway through. I’m at his side before I can think about it, my hand sliding around his arm instinctively.
“I’ve got you,” I say.
He stills for a fraction of a second.
Then he lets some of his weight settle into me, just enough that I can feel it, just enough that it changes the space between us into something quieter and real.
“Careful,” he murmurs, softer now. “I’m a lot.”
“I’ve noticed,” I reply.
Zane moves in on his other side without a word, efficient as always, and together we guide Finn toward the workbench. Ryder watches the whole thing—every step, every shift, every vulnerability—like he’s already deciding what it means.
Time blurs into something strange and stretched, and the adrenaline has worn off enough to leave everything else behind.
Finn is patched up as well as he can be for now, propped against the wall with Zane rechecking the bandage. Ryder stepped out a few minutes ago, saying something about speaking to someone he knows.
He didn’t look back when he left.
Which somehow makes it worse.
I sit on the floor, my back against the cool metal wall, my knees pulled loosely to my chest. My hands are clean now, Zane made sure of that, but I can still feel it.
The ghost of it.
“Well,” Finn says, exhaling slowly. “That escalated.”
Zane doesn’t look up. “You got stabbed.”
“Okay, but like… lightly.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“I feel like you’re being very negative about my recovery process.”
I let out a small breath that almost resembles a laugh, and Finn’s gaze flicks to me immediately, catching it like it matters.
“You good?” he asks quietly.
I nod, then shake my head, then settle somewhere in between. “I don’t know.”
“Fair,” he says.
Zane finally leans back, satisfied enough with the bandage to stop adjusting it. His eyes move to me, soft but searching. “You held it together.”
“I cried,” I point out.
“You still held it together.”
“I’ve never…” I start, then stop.
Never what?
Seen someone bleed for me?
Been part of something like this?
Felt this tangled up in people I barely knew a few weeks ago?
I exhale slowly. “This isn’t what I planned.”
Finn huffs lightly. “Yeah, we’re really ruining your itinerary.”
I glance at him. “You absolutely are.”
“Tragic,” he says. “We had such a nice, normal thing going. You, me, a casual night at a bar, zero life-altering decisions—”
Zane cuts in, quiet but firm. “Finn.”
“I didn’t think you’d stay,” Finn says after a beat. “Not like this.”
“I didn’t either,” I admit.
Zane watches me carefully. “Then why are you still here?”
I realize, sitting there on the floor of a storage unit, that I don’t have a simple answer.
“I was supposed to leave,” I say slowly. “That was the plan. That’s always my plan. Or it has been, since I started traveling after I lost Evie.”
Finn’s expression tightens slightly. “Yeah. You’ve mentioned.”
“But every time I think about actually leaving…” I hesitate. “It doesn’t feel like relief. It feels like… walking away from something I don’t understand yet.”
Finn’s gaze drops, then comes back to me. “That’s because you don’t.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be,” he replies gently.
Zane shifts slightly closer, his shoulder brushing mine. “You don’t have to figure it all out right now.”
“I feel like I do,” I admit. “Because this…” I gesture vaguely around us, at the unit, at them, at everything that just happened. “This isn’t small.”
“No,” Finn says quietly. “It’s not.”
“And you…” I look at him, then Zane, then the space where Ryder had been standing earlier. “You’re not small either.”
Finn exhales slowly, leaning his head back against the wall. “Yeah. That’s kind of the problem.”
Zane’s voice is softer. “We didn’t expect this.”
“Me either,” I say quickly.
“No,” he agrees. “But it’s happening anyway.”
“I’m not… naive,” I say after a moment. “I know what this is. What you are. What this life looks like when it’s not controlled.”
Finn glances at me. “You saw a pretty mild version, for the record.”
“That’s not comforting either.”
“Working on my delivery.”
Zane doesn’t soften it. “We didn’t plan this. But it’s not going away either.”
“And you think I am?” I ask, because I need to know what they think. What they expect.
Finn shakes his head slowly. “No.”
“But you might,” Zane jumps in.
“I don’t want to make a decision based on fear,” I say.
“Good,” Finn murmurs.
“Or guilt,” I add.
Zane nods. “You shouldn’t.”
I take a breath. “Or… momentum.”
Finn huffs softly. “That one’s harder.”
“Yeah,” I admit.
“And what do you want?” Zane asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I say honestly.
Finn studies me for a long second, then nods. “Okay.”
Zane leans back slightly. “Then we don’t rush it.”
“You say that like everything else hasn’t been… very fast,” I point out.
Finn grins faintly. “We can be patient.”
And then, because my body apparently decides timing without consulting me, the exhaustion hits all at once.
The adrenaline crash. The emotional weight. The fact that I haven’t actually slept properly in… I don’t even know how long.
“I think…” I start, then yawn mid-sentence, which feels deeply disrespectful to the gravity of the situation.
Finn smiles, softer now. “Yeah. That.”
Zane shifts immediately, already reaching for the jacket. He sets it beside me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Lie down,” he says.
“I’m fine,” I begin.
“You’re not,” he replies calmly.
Finn pats his thigh. “We have excellent bedside manners. Very professional.”
I hesitate for about two seconds.
Then give up.
I settle carefully, using the jacket as a pillow, my shoulder brushing Zane’s leg, my hand still loosely wrapped around Finn’s sleeve like I forgot to let go.
Neither of them moves away.
Zane’s hand rests lightly against my arm.
Finn’s fingers curl around mine, warm despite everything.
The last thing I hear before sleep pulls me under is Finn: “We’ve got you.”
Then all of a sudden, I’m standing on the Lookout Trail.
Only it’s different.
Brighter.
Softer somehow, like the world has been turned slightly toward warmth.
Everything smells like pine and wildflowers and a sweetness I can’t quite name.
I know this place, I’ve stood here before, but now there’s more.
A feeling.
Like I’m not alone.
“Rory girl.”
The voice hits me like a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
I turn.
And she’s there.
Evie.
Exactly the way I remember her.
Warm eyes. Knowing smile. The kind of presence that feels like home before you even touch it.
“Hi,” I whisper.
She steps closer, cupping my face in her hands like she used to, like she never stopped.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “You made it.”
“I didn’t do it right,” I say immediately, because apparently even in dreams I cannot stop over-explaining my life. “This wasn’t… I was supposed to come here and…. and leave, and I didn’t, and now everything’s complicated, and I don’t know what I’m doing and…”
“Good,” she says gently.
I blink. “Good?”
Her smile widens just slightly. “It means you’re living.”
I stare at her. “That’s not helpful.”
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she replies. “It’s supposed to be yours.”
I glance past her, toward the town below. Coyote Glen shines softly in the distance.
“I don’t know if I belong here,” I admit.
Evie follows my gaze. “Do you feel like you can breathe here?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Then why are you arguing with it?”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Because I don’t have a good answer.
“I thought I was supposed to find myself,” I say instead.
She laughs softly. “And you think that happens far away from everything that matters?”
“I don’t know what matters yet.”
She tilts her head. “Don’t you?”
And then they’re there.
Ryder, watching everything like it could disappear if he looked away.
Zane, quieter, closer, like he’s already part of the space around me.
Finn, a little to the side, hands in his pockets, looking at me like I’m worth staying for.
My chest tightens.
“That’s not simple,” I say.
Evie smiles. “Nothing worth keeping ever is.”
“I could get hurt.”
“Yes,” she says gently.
“They could get hurt.”
Her hand squeezes mine. “Yes.”
I swallow. “This could go wrong.”
She meets my eyes. “It could go right.”
“I…” I don’t even know how to finish that thought.
“You don’t have to decide everything right now,” she continues. “You just have to stop running from the part of you that already knows.”
I close my eyes.
Finally, I don’t feel pulled in two directions.
When I open them again, she’s smiling at me like she already knows what I’m going to do.
“What if I stay?” I ask.
Her expression softens. “Then you build something beautiful.”
“And if I leave?”
“You’ll carry this place with you anyway.”
“I think…” I start.
Then stop, because I don’t need to finish it.
Evie brushes her thumb over my cheek. “I’m proud of you.”
My throat tightens. “I miss you.”
“I know,” she says softly. “But you’re not alone anymore.”