EPILOGUE
The rain had started sometime in the night.
Not the kind that battered or roared—just a gentle, constant rhythm tapping the windows. Soft. Soothing. Like a lullaby for the wreckage we’d left behind in the dark.
I lay tangled between them—skin bare, breath steady. For the first time in too long, my body isn’t bracing for touch. I’m not flinching from shadows or second-guessing who I am allowed to be.
Shoomaker’s arm lays draped heavy across my waist, his fingers splayed wide, always claiming more than he admits. His breathing is slow, steady, one long exhale against the back of my neck every time I shift.
Montgomery is curled around my other side, his hand tucked beneath his cheek like he can’t bear to not touch me, even in sleep. His other fingers lightly thread through mine—subtle, almost shy, as if he still doesn’t quite believe I’d ask for him too.
I stare up at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
But not because of nightmares.
Because for the first time in years, I don’t have any.
My body aches, but not in the ways it used to. There are no bruises blooming under my skin, no phantom pain tracing over old wounds. Just a soreness that reminds me I am alive. Desired. Loved, even if no one has spoken the word out loud yet.
And underneath it all, a quiet truth sits in my chest like an anchor:
My father is dead. Has been for many years.
We found out only days after Shaimez was taken into custody. Hoping for a lighter sentence, he gave an OCCOB operative the location of an unmarked grave on foreign soil.
The body they recovered was identified soon after.
Dead before I was ever saved. Before I ever started looking over my shoulder, wondering if any monsters were still out there somewhere…still hunting me.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t even flinch.
Because finally, he wasn’t a threat anymore.
He couldn’t touch me.
Couldn’t reach through the cracks of my life and steal my breath in the night.
And knowing that—knowing I am truly, finally safe—makes the silence in this room feel sacred.
Not long after, a letter was sent to my aunt. Official. Clinical. Informing her that bones believed to belong to Starling Pierce had been recovered in a plot not far from the compound.
That the girl everyone had been searching for was dead.
Shoomaker made sure it went through every proper channel. Clean enough to close the case. Real enough that no one would question it.
Including her.
I turn slowly, careful not to disturb Shoomaker too much as I roll to face Montgomery. His lashes twitch, brows furrowing just enough to show he isn’t fully under.
“You’re staring,” he mumbles, lips curving faintly even with his eyes closed.
“I’m allowed,” I whisper.
He opens one eye, and that is all it takes for the tension to slip between us again—not the kind that asks for more, but the kind that holds everything we aren’t saying.
Montgomery reaches out and cups my cheek. “You okay, my rose?”
I nod. “I think so.”
Shoomaker stirs behind me, shifting just enough to press a kiss to my shoulder. “You sure?”
His voice is gravel, sleep-rough and deeply him.
I swallow thickly, nodding again. “I don’t feel…broken anymore.”
Montgomery’s eyes soften. “You were never broken.”
“But I was…splintered,” I admit, tracing a finger along the edge of his jaw. “And I think…between the two of you, I’ve finally started to put those pieces back together.”
They don’t rush to answer. They don’t deflect. Don’t joke or undermine what I’d said.
Shoomaker reaches for my hand and threads his fingers through mine, resting them just beneath my heart. “You put yourself back together, Starling. We were just here to remind you how.”
I smile, small but real.
“You’re staying, right?” Montgomery asks, quieter now. There is a hint of hesitation in his tone, a vulnerability he’d never shown when wearing his mask—either literal or emotional.
I look between them.
Shoomaker, the man I’d once feared while wearing a porcelain mask, who now touches me like I am glass he wants to protect, not control.
Montgomery, the man who deceived me to save me, who looks at me like I am something sacred even in the mess of my rage and grief.
“I don’t know what this looks like,” I say honestly. “Us. This.”
I gesture between them.
Shoomaker nods slowly. “It doesn’t have to look like anything yet.”
Montgomery leans in, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “It just has to feel right, Daya Montgomery.”
The name settles over the room softly, almost carefully.
And somehow…it does feel right.
At least right now.
I let my head rest against Montgomery’s chest, listening to the steady rhythm beneath my ear while Shoomaker curls back around me from behind, solid and grounding in a completely different way.
For a moment, neither of them speaks.
Then Shoomaker’s fingers catch my hand lightly, drawing attention to the ring still resting on my finger.
His mouth twitches faintly.
“A name doesn’t mean you belong to him, little survivor,” he says, voice low with that familiar edge of amusement beneath it.
“And neither does a ring.” Montgomery snorts softly under his breath.
Shoomaker turns my hand slightly in his grip, dark eyes flicking to mine instead of the jewelry itself.
“Do you want to keep wearing it?” he asks quietly. “Or do you want it gone?”
The question catches me off guard more than it should.
Because he asks it like the answer matters.
Before I can respond, Montgomery shifts beside me. One hand leaves my waist long enough for him to reach toward the nightstand.
When he turns back, there’s a small black box in his hand.
My breath catches.
“Montgomery—”
“Relax,” he murmurs, though there’s nervousness hidden underneath the teasing warmth in his voice. “I’ve been carrying this thing around forever.”
He flips the lid open.
Another ring.
Different from Shoomaker’s entirely. Delicate gold vines twist around the band, like something grown instead of forged, tiny diamonds catching the light like scattered drops of rain. At the center sits a pale stone cradled inside blooming petals—a rose frozen mid-bloom.
Soft.
Elegant.
The kind of ring that doesn’t feel like possession or power.
It feels like being cherished.
My pulse stutters as he slides it gently onto my finger with the first ring.
“There,” he says quietly, brushing his thumb over my hand afterward. “Now nobody gets to complain.”
I laugh before I can stop myself—small, breathless, emotional around the edges.
Shoomaker shakes his head once behind me, but I can feel the amusement in the way his arm tightens around my waist.
Outside this room, the storm is still waiting.
The media. The aftermath. The questions that will follow us once the world learns what happened inside that mansion and what it took to bring it down.
But here… in this moment…
There is only warmth.
Only the steady rise and fall of breathing around me.
Only the impossible feeling of being held without being trapped.
And for the first time in years, I don’t feel like I have to run.
I am already home.