Chapter 3 #2
It had been a few months since Destiny arrived. Long enough for her to settle into the compound's rhythm, but not long enough for her to fully trust any of us yet. That morning, I had asked her to run with me — not training, not patrol, just a run — and she had agreed with her simple “ok.”
We shifted near the northern trail and took off through the forest.
Back then, I paid almost as much attention to Isdisa as to Destiny.
The more settled Isdisa grew, the more settled Destiny became.
That morning, Isdisa was in a mood — playful, loose, racing through the trees and doubling back for no reason but because she wanted to.
Kai gave chase every time. Neither kept score.
They simply enjoyed each other's company.
I remember thinking: there she is, the soft, playful nature at her core.
When we stopped and shifted back, we were both breathing hard. Destiny pulled her shirt over her head and pointed at me.
"You cheated."
"I won."
"You cut through the creek."
"It was faster."
"Exactly."
I shrugged. "Sounds like winning to me."
She rolled her eyes. I caught the smile she was trying to kill before it finished arriving.
I had been collecting those since day one. The almost-smiles. The laugh she cut off before it went too far. The small pieces of herself that slipped out when she forgot she was supposed to be managing how much she gave away. I never said anything about them. I just stored them away.
I heard the waterfall before I saw it. The sound carried through the trees, steady and close.
Destiny tilted her head. "What's that?"
"Come on," I said.
She gave me the look she reserved for things that needed more information before she committed to moving, but she followed me anyway.
We moved through the tree line into the clearing, where the falls were immediately visible—water streaming over dark stone in a wide sheet, plunging into a deep pool. The afternoon light caught the mist, creating an ethereal scene that looked like a painting no one had ever painted.
Destiny stopped walking and admired the view.
I had noticed early on that beautiful things slipped past her defenses before fear did. She couldn't armor up fast enough against something that posed no threat. A good view, a quiet morning, a sound with no agenda — those things reached her in the half-second before she remembered to hold back.
"It's beautiful," she said. Quiet. Not performing for me and just saying it because it was true.
I felt unreasonably pleased with myself.
She noticed immediately.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Whatever that face is."
"I'm not making a face."
"You think you accomplished something."
"I discovered this waterfall."
"Ty, it was always here; you didn’t invent it."
"True, but I am the master discoverer, and I will let you be my pretty little assistant."
She rolled her eyes so hard it looked like it took real effort. I laughed. She tried not to smile and lost.
I stepped into the pool.
She stopped at the edge.
I hadn't said a word yet.
"No," she said.
I smiled. "The water's perfect."
"No."
"You're scared."
That sexy glare crossed her face, along with a warning look.
I kept going anyway. "Don’t be scared, lil wolf."
She scooped up a handful of water and threw it directly at my face.
The fight started there.
Water was thrown. Accusations followed — she accused me of escalating; I reminded her she had thrown the first water; she claimed I had initiated the provocation; I asked whether a statement could be considered a projectile; she replied that, in the right context, it could.
At one point, she threatened to drown me.
I reminded her I was a water wolf. She said she was willing to learn.
We both started laughing uncontrollably, and neither of us was trying to see who was winning the game.
Then she stepped back, her foot hit the wet rock at the wrong angle, and she started to go.
I caught her. Well, mostly caught her.
We both went under.
When she surfaced, she wore the expression of a woman prepared to be furious. I watched her hold it for exactly three seconds before it collapsed.
She laughed.
Head back. Eyes closed. The full version — not the careful one she handed out when she wasn't sure how much of herself she wanted a person to have. Not the almost. The real thing, rising from somewhere deep, echoing off the rocks and blending with the sound of the falls behind her.
I stood in that water and watched her laugh, and I did not move.
Not because she was beautiful, though she was. Because she looked like someone who, for this specific moment, had put everything down. No accounting. No exits mapped. No part of her mind was running through the room to see what it might cost her.
She was living in the moment.
A woman who had spent most of her life carrying things that were never supposed to be hers — and was not carrying a single one of them right now.
She caught me staring.
"What?"
I shook my head. "Nothing."
"Tyrell."
The warning in her voice only made me smile.
She narrowed her eyes and laughed again. And that second one was better than the first.
I stood under that waterfall and understood something clearly for the first time. I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to give her reasons to make that sound.
A year later, I still meant it.
That was never the problem.