47. Aurora
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Aurora
The first thing I do when I wake up is check my wrists.
It’s not conscious. Not really. My hands move before my brain catches up, fingers brushing over skin that still remembers a tightness it should never have known.
The marks are fading. Yellow now, soft around the edges, less angry than they were before.
Still there.
I press my thumb lightly into one of them, just to prove something to myself. That I can feel it. That it’s mine. That it doesn’t own me.
It hurts.
I exhale slowly and sit up. The room is warm. Lamp still on. Blanket tangled around my legs. The faint smell of cedar and coffee and something fried drifting up from downstairs.
The Hollow.
I’m here.
Not there.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit, letting my body catch up to the fact that the floor isn’t concrete and the door isn’t locked from the outside and no one is coming back in unless I let them.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself.
Mission: be normal.
Or… close enough that no one looks at me like I might shatter if they breathe too hard.
I stand.
My knees don’t betray me today, which feels like a small miracle I don’t trust enough to celebrate.
I dress slowly. Soft sweater. Skirt. Boots that make me feel a little more solid than I actually am. I braid my hair with fingers that only shake a little, then pull it loose again because the braid feels too tight against my scalp.
Too controlled.
Too much like something I didn’t choose.
Loose waves it is.
I pause at the mirror. There’s a version of me in there that looks… almost the same. Freckles, green eyes, that stubborn softness I’ve always carried like a shield no one takes seriously until they try to break it.
And then there’s the difference.
It’s quieter.
Sharpened.
Like I’ve seen something I can’t unsee and decided not to look away from it.
“Hi,” I tell her softly.
She looks like she might cry.
So I smile instead and leave the room before I can change my mind.
The stairs feel longer than they used to.
Not physically.
Just… every step feels like a decision now.
Down means people, noise, and being seen.
Up means quiet. Safe. Small.
I take the steps anyway.
Because hiding isn’t the same as healing, and I refuse to confuse the two.
The bar is already open.
Arlo’s behind the counter, wiping down glasses like he’s been doing it for fifty years and plans to keep doing it for fifty more. He looks up when I reach the bottom step.
His eyes go straight to my wrists, then he looks back at my face like that’s the only thing that matters.
“Morning,” he says.
“Morning,” I echo.
My voice is calm.
I take that win.
He slides a mug across the bar without asking. Coffee. Exactly how I’ve been taking it since I got here.
I wrap my hands around it.
“I’m glad you’re still here,” he adds, casual as anything.
Like he’s commenting on the weather.
Like he didn’t just say words that land in my chest and settle there.
“Me too,” I say softly.
He nods once, like that’s enough, and then he goes back to his glasses.
It doesn’t take long for the rest of the town to learn what happened to me.
Coyote Glen doesn’t do subtle.
The door opens and closes in a soothing rhythm, and with each person who walks in, I can feel it.
The knowing.
It hums under everything like a live wire.
People glance.
Then don’t stare.
Voices soften just a little when they pass me.
Conversations shift half a degree when I walk by, like they’re adjusting around something fragile without making it obvious.
If this were anywhere else, it would feel suffocating.
Like being watched, judged, picked apart, and turned into a story that doesn’t belong to me anymore.
Here… it feels different, warmer. Like the town isn’t asking what happened. It’s asking: are you still standing?
I sip my coffee and pretend my hands aren’t shaking.
Pretend the way the door slamming makes my shoulders jump is just me being dramatic, that I don’t notice the way Arlo times the music to stay just loud enough to cover the sharper sounds. Pretend I’m normal.
I’m doing a great job.
Truly, an Oscar-worthy performance.
Right up until the door flies open like it personally offended someone.
“I swear, if anyone even looked at you wrong—”
“Ivy,” I breathe.
She storms in like a category five emotional event, hair wild, eyes blazing, energy somewhere between maternal instinct and chosen violence.
Behind her, Olivia follows with one hand on her stomach and the other gripping Jesse’s sleeve like she’s both calm and ready to fight someone anyway.
Sloane slips in quieter, but her gaze is sharp, taking everything in.
Delaney brings up the rear, arms crossed, already scanning like she’s deciding who she needs to threaten first.
It’s… a lot.
And also…
My throat tightens.
Mine.
All of them.
“Hi,” I say, because that’s what comes out when your heart is doing a weird and inconvenient skip.
Ivy stops dead in front of me, really looks at me, and her eyes drop to my wrists.
Her expression cracks.
“Oh, honey. I only just heard…”
And then she’s hugging me, trying to make up for something she wasn’t here to stop.
I freeze for half a second, then melt, because apparently being held like you matter is a thing my body has decided it needs right now.
“I’m okay,” I say into her shoulder.
She pulls back just enough to cup my face in both hands, eyes fierce and a little shiny. “You don’t have to be okay for me.”
That does it.
I swallow hard. “I know.”
She nods, like that’s the right answer.
Behind her, Olivia steps forward, softer but just as sure. “We brought backup. Because for some reason, gossip moved slow this time, and we feel guilty about only just coming to help.”
Sloane lifts a small bag. “Emergency sugar.”
Delaney snorts. “And if anyone needs threatening, I volunteer.”
I laugh. It comes out shaky, but still counts.
Before I can say anything else, the door opens again. Lani walks in like she belongs everywhere she goes, a tray balanced in one hand. Coffee. Pastries. It smells like cinnamon and comfort.
Her eyes find me immediately.
She crosses the room without hesitation and sets the tray down in front of me like she’s delivering something sacred.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” she says quietly.
My chest squeezes. “Me too.”
“I brought you more bake sale samples.”
“More?” I chuckle.
She nods once, satisfied, then immediately starts handing out coffee like this is a completely normal morning and not… whatever this is.
Normal.
We’re doing normal…
At some point, Judge McDowell appears.
She moves through the bar like she owns gravity itself, composed and sharp and completely unbothered by the madness of Ivy and pastries and Lani reorganizing half the counter.
Her gaze lands on me, pins, assesses, then drops, briefly, to my wrists.
“Miss Harper,” she says.
“Judge,” I reply, because apparently I’m capable of manners even while internally unraveling.
She steps closer, lowering her voice just enough to make it private without making it secret. “I heard you handled yourself well.”
I blink.
That was not what I expected.
“I… got kidnapped,” I say, because facts feel important here.
“And survived,” she counters.
A beat.
Then, quieter, “That matters.”
It does.
I nod slowly. “Thank you.”
She inclines her head once, as if we’ve just completed some kind of exchange that doesn’t need to be named, and then turns to Arlo to ask about licensing permits like this is just another day in Coyote Glen.
Which, I guess, it is, because this town doesn’t stop. It adjusts, absorbs, and then it keeps going…
By the time the afternoon slows, everything has shifted.
The fear is still there, tucked under my ribs, ready to spike if a door slams too hard or footsteps come too fast, but there’s more layered over it now.
People, support, the quiet, unspoken agreement that I’m not alone in this. The danger came, exactly what they were worried about, but they have chosen us anyway. Chosen me.
Coyote Glen may gossip, but it protects its own, no matter what.
The thought settles into me like a second heartbeat.
I slip upstairs before I can get overwhelmed by it. The kitchen light is on. I step in and find them there, all three of them.
Ryder at the counter, hands braced like he’s holding himself in place.
Zane at the table, something taken apart in front of him, tools laid out in careful lines.
Finn leaning back in his chair, one arm slung over the back, like he’s pretending this is just another evening and not… everything.
They all look up at the same time.
No one says anything.
And something in me, that I’ve been holding together with careful smiles and steady breaths and I’m okay and I’m fine and I can handle this, cracks.
My throat closes, and before I can stop it, the tears are there. Relieved, sad, confused… I don’t know really.
“Oh,” I breathe, startled, like I didn’t see it coming.
Finn is out of his chair first, with Zane right behind him. Ryder doesn’t move as fast, but when he does, it’s like gravity shifts with him.
“Hey,” Finn says softly, hands hovering like he doesn’t know where to put them and doesn’t want to get it wrong.
Zane steps in closer. “You’re okay.”
“I know,” I say, and then I’m crying harder because I do know, and it doesn’t make it stop.
Ryder’s hand comes up, brushing lightly along my arm like he’s asking permission without words.
I lean into it.
Everything gives. I press my face into his chest, hands clutching his shirt like I need something solid to anchor to, and the tears come properly now.
“I tried to be strong,” I manage between breaths.
“You are,” Zane says immediately.
“I know, but I…” My voice breaks. “I don’t feel…”
Finn’s hand settles at the back of my neck. “You don’t have to feel anything except what’s happening right now.”
Ryder’s arm wraps around me fully then. “You don’t have to hold it together in here.”
In here, with them, I let go, completely. The sob that tears out of me is ugly and loud and full of everything I’ve been swallowing since the alley and the dark and the please don’t do anything stupid and the way I thought…
“I was so scared,” I whisper.
“I know,” Zane says.
“We know,” Finn adds.
Ryder doesn’t say it, he just holds me closer.
I cry until there’s nothing left to give, until the shaking eases, until my breathing starts to come back in pieces that feel like they might eventually fit together again.
When it finally quiets, I pull back slightly, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my sweater.
“Sorry,” I murmur automatically.
All three of them look at me like I just said something deeply stupid.
“Don’t,” Finn says.
“Yeah,” Zane adds. “We’re not doing that.”
Ryder’s thumb brushes once under my eye, catching a tear I missed. “No apologies.”
They don’t let go right away. I don’t want them to.
Because I don’t feel like I’m holding myself together alone.
I feel held.
And maybe…
Maybe that’s what healing actually looks like.