XXVI
The room had two storms now.
And I stood between them, painfully aware of the water dripping from my hair onto the thin cotton of my undershirt. My sleeves were gone. There was nothing to tug over my hands, nothing to hide behind.
The marks on my neck ached beneath the damp curtain of my hair, cold and insistent, as if they knew they had been seen.
My first instinct was to cover them.
I dipped my chin, letting the wet strands fall forward over my shoulders.
A flimsy shield.
A pathetic one.
But it was all I had.
“Hey,” I blurted out, too loudly in the sudden silence. “Yeah. We’re fine. Just a surge. The storm must’ve hit the lines.”
Ford didn’t move.
His eyes traveled from my face to Heaton’s.
“And he is . . . ?”
I felt Heaton’s attention shift to me.
He only watched, silver eyes sparking with dark, expectant amusement, as if he wanted to see what kind of lie I would build around him.
“Heaton Dashwood,” I said, the name feeling heavy in my mouth. “My partner. For Baker’s class.”
Partner.
A feeble word for the man who had just short-circuited Harvey’s lab and left his fingerprints under my skin.
Heaton’s mouth curved.
Barely.
“Lucky me,” he said, turning back to Ford. “I got paired with an October. Around here, that seems to mean something.”
“Yeah, they’re definitely . . . something,” Ford said, voice dropping. “So, you’re helping her with school stuff? In the dark?”
Heaton’s eyes flicked to me, catching the nervous way I dragged my hair forward over my throat.
“School stuff,” he repeated, as if the words amused him. “Sure.”
The air in the kitchen turned static-heavy, the kind of pressure that preceded a lightning strike. I stepped forward, trying to put myself between them before the whole damn room caught fire.
“Heaton was just leaving,” I said. “I should drive him home before the creek rises.”
“I’ll take him.”
Ford’s answer came too fast.
“You don’t have to—”
“You barely know this guy. Absolutely not.”
Heaton’s stare slid past Ford entirely, landing on a point on the wall just over his shoulder.
“No need,” Heaton offered smoothly. “My ride’s almost here.”
His gaze shifted back to Ford, cool and unreadable.
“But I appreciate the concern.”
“Kind of late for a study session, though, isn’t it?”
Heaton looked at me then, as if he wanted Ford to notice the pause.
“Guess we lost track of time.”
My face went hot.
Lightning splintered the sky, bleaching the kitchen white. The room became all edges: Ford in the doorway, rigid with rain and fury; Heaton beside the table, dark and still; me caught between them, damp and breathless and guilty of things I didn’t have names for yet.
Then the light vanished.
In the aftermath, a low engine thrum rose beneath the rain.
Headlights swept across the hallway window, slicing through the darkness.
Heaton pushed away from the table.
“Like I said.”
He looked at me, the stove’s gold light sharpening the flecks of dark silver in his eyes.
“Tomorrow, October.”
He gave Ford a single, dismissive nod and slipped out into the rain. The back door clicked shut, the sound unnervingly final.
Ford dragged a hand down his face, his breath painfully controlled. When he turned to me, his eyes were thick with every silent day we had piled up between us.
“Maddie,” he said. “What the hell was that?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” My voice came out sharper than I had meant. “Did you need to burst in here like you were serving a damn warrant?”
“Don’t dodge me.”
He stepped closer, rain dripping from his coat onto the tile.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
A hysterical laugh nearly escaped.
Trouble?
I was living in it.
“What? No,” I shook my head too fast. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Oh.” His expression hardened. “So, we’re keeping secrets from each other now. Got it.”
“Ford, it’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?” He let out a bitter laugh and glanced toward the door Heaton had just walked through. “I didn’t come over here to start a fight. I came because I thought you needed help.”
The words were a lifeline.
And I snapped them in two.
“Even little kids can handle a power outage, Ford.”
The second I said it, I wished I hadn’t.
Hurt flashed beneath his anger before he dragged a hand over his jaw and looked away.
“God,” he muttered. “I knew I should never have—”
He stopped himself, pacing once as if he needed somewhere to put the frustration.
“You know what? Fine. Let’s talk about it.”
He motioned sharply toward the back door.
“So, you can handle a power outage. Great. You’re a big girl now. But this?” His gaze cut back to me. “This isn’t independence. It’s not proof you’re fine. It’s you not knowing when to stop.”
“Ford—”
“All because I called you a kid?” His voice roughened. “Fine. You’re not a kid. You’re an adult making dangerously stupid choices. Is that better?”
I flinched.
Regret flickered through his expression, but he pushed on.
“Adults don’t lie to the people trying to help them. They don’t sneak off into the mountains alone after promising they wouldn’t. And they sure as hell don’t bring home”—his eyes moved to the door again, disgust and fear twisting together—“whatever that was.”
My throat tightened.
“He’s not—”
“Don’t,” Ford’s voice dropped. “Don’t defend him to me. Not when you’re standing here covered in marks you won’t explain, looking at me like I’m the problem.”
My petty stab hadn’t just been deflected.
It had been caught, sharpened, and handed back to me, blade-first.
“Wow.” My laugh came out brittle. “Okay. Sorry I lost my footing in the canyons. Some of us didn’t grow up in them. I’m allowed to have a few scrapes and bruises without you filing a missing person’s report.”
Ford stepped back.
A dry, humorless sound left him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I grew up in these mountains.”
He dragged a hand through his rain-wet hair, shaking his head.
“And I know what a rockfall looks like.”
His eyes dropped to my neck.
My wrist.
The places I couldn’t hide fast enough.
“That’s not it.”
The lie evaporated between us.
All the heat rushed to my face, dizzying and awful. My hand curled against the table, nails biting into my palm.
Ford’s entire posture changed, and he took a half-step forward.
“Maddie.”
His eyes searched mine with an intensity that made my stomach turn.
“Has he hurt you? Done anything he shouldn’t?”
My pulse kicked, but I forced my eyes to stay level with his and shook my head.
“No,” I whispered. “It’s not like that.”
The words were true.
Mostly.
That was the horrible part.
I looked down at my clenched fist, and the fight finally went out of me.
“I just didn’t want you worrying,” I said, voice cracking. “You or Penny. I wanted you to think I was safe.”
The confession hung in the air.
The tears I had been holding back burned at the back of my throat. I finally looked up at him, my vision blurring.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “I’m sorry I disappeared. I’m sorry I lied.”
Ford was in front of me before I registered him moving, bringing with him the scent of rain, clean cotton, and sun-warmed juniper.
“Maddie,” he said gently. “Hey. Look at me.”
I forced my eyes up. The concern on his face felt like a glimpse of a world I thought I’d lost. No anger. No judgment. Just Ford, looking at me like I was something he would have carried out of a burning house, even if I screamed at him the whole way.
“You don’t have to do this alone,” he said. “Whatever this is, whatever you’re dealing with—you don’t have to lie to me. You don’t have to pretend you’re okay when you’re not.”
His hand rose slowly, hovering before resting on my shoulder. It was a careful, grounding touch, a point of warmth in the cold mess I’d made.
“I’m always going to worry,” he whispered, his thumb moving once. “That’s not something I know how to turn off. But I’d rather worry about the truth than be comforted by a lie.”
I saw the plea in his hazel eyes.
Let me in. Let me help.
And I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
But how could I explain the cold? The hum of power beneath my skin? The mines, the lab, the salt line, the way Heaton looked at me like I was both his prey and his prayer?
The first tear slipped free.
Then another.
I wasn’t crying from sadness. I was crying from the sheer, overwhelming frustration of being trapped in a truth no one else could see.
“Okay,” Ford whispered.
He pulled me into him slowly, as if he still wasn’t sure I’d let him. The second his arms closed around me, I broke.
I buried my face in his damp coat and let myself fracture for the first time in months. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t push. He just held me with a fierce, familiar strength while I cried out the fear, the guilt, the confusion.
All of it.
When he finally pulled back, it was only enough to look at me. His thumb brushed my cheek, catching a stray tear.
“Just tell me you’re not in over your head.”
I couldn’t answer.
His expression crumpled slightly, but he nodded as if he’d expected that too.
“I’m not your keeper, Maddie. I’m not.” His voice was rough now. “But you have backup. Whether or not you’re lying to me. Whether or not you hate me right now.”
And just like that, the fight was over.
He hadn’t thrown a punch.
He’d laid down his sword and surrendered. He wasn’t asking me to win the argument. He was just asking me to save him from worrying about me.
And I couldn’t even do that.