Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
DEATH WISH LOVE
ZACK
Iforget, sometimes, what laughter sounds like when it isn’t forced.
The engine hums steady beneath us as the highway stretches out in long, forgiving lines, morning light spilling across the windshield like it doesn’t know or care what we’re carrying with us.
Hazel’s feet are on the dash despite my very clear and very reasonable objection to that choice.
Her sunglasses are crooked on her nose, hair styled down that makes each coil pop, each curl she took time on, that looks like it happened accidentally and absolutely did not.
Hazel Matthis is not someone who does anything on accident, but is so effortless that I often forget that she’s been through so much.
I will protect her with as much as I physically can.
Nothing bad will ever happen to her again.
“You know,” she says, tapping the glass with her heel, “statistically speaking, road trips are how people bond. Or die. But mostly bond.”
“Get your feet down,” I tell her, but there’s no heat in it. I don’t even try to reach for them.
She grins wider. “Wow. That was almost playful. Are you feeling okay? Do you need medical attention?”
I snort before I can stop myself, the sound surprising both of us. She turns to look at me like she just won something.
“There it is,” she says triumphantly. “I knew you had one of those hidden in there.”
“One what?”
“A laugh. A personality. Joy.”
“Careful,” I say. “You’re pushing it.”
She laughs, bright and unrestrained, and something in my chest loosens in response.
This is new. Not her—she’s always been like this—but me, letting it land instead of bracing for the moment it disappears.
Two days ago, I would’ve been cataloging exits, watching mirrors, replaying every mistake in my head.
I still am, a little. That part of me doesn’t shut off.
But it’s quieter now, edged back just enough to let something else through.
I let her in, something that after what happened to Sam and I, I swore never to do again.
I let Lincoln in years ago, and he came to me when we joined Broken Halos.
Lincoln and Nora are my people, Cameron, and hell, even Leyla, became my people.
I was adamant that I would never again let anyone else in, but here is this tiny spitfire who eats attitude for breakfast, but is also soft and beautiful, who has started to let me believe that there might actually be peace again.
That I can maybe be happy. Cameron would have a field day.
We’re headed to Philly because the map finally makes sense again.
Because Cameron and Leyla aren’t dead—they were silenced.
And if what Lincoln shared with me is true, they are actually alive.
Because the real trail doesn’t scream for attention; it waits.
And because for once, we’re not reacting, we’re moving with intention.
Hazel turns the radio up, some ridiculous pop song filling the car, and starts singing like she doesn’t care how off-key she is. I open my mouth to complain, and then don’t. Instead, I shake my head and let the corner of my mouth lift.
“You know all the words,” I say.
“Obviously,” she replies. “I contain multitudes.”
She glances over at me, catches the look on my face, and softens just a fraction. Not sad. Not heavy. Just real. “You okay over there, tough guy?”
I nod once. “Yeah. I am.”
And I mean it.
There’s something different about this morning.
About her. About us. The closeness crept up quietly, built in moments that didn’t demand attention—late-night conversations, shared silence, the simple fact of choosing to sit beside each other instead of apart.
I didn’t plan for it. I don’t plan for anything that isn’t a threat assessment or an exit strategy.
But here she is; alive, and bright, and taking up space in my passenger seat like she belongs there. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself believe that maybe I don’t have to carry everything alone.
She nudges my arm. “When we get to Philly, I call dibs on food. You look like a man who forgets to eat when he’s brooding.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You absolutely brood,” she insists. “It’s very intense. Very mysterious. Very bad for blood sugar. Can’t have my Gramps getting diabetes.”
I laugh again, easier this time, and she beams like that was the goal all along.
The road curves east, the city still hours away, and for now that’s okay. For now, there’s sunlight, and bad music, and the sound of Hazel talking with her hands like she’s telling a story the whole world deserves to hear.
Whatever waits for us in Philly—whatever truth Cameron and Leyla got close enough to die for—we’ll face it when we get there.
But this morning?
This morning, I drive.
She laughs.
And for once, I let my guard rest instead of tightening it.
Just for a mile or two.
The laughter fades into something quieter.
Not awkward, just settled. Like the road finally found its rhythm and decided to keep it.
Hazel turns the radio down without me asking, which tells me she’s thinking about something.
She always does that when she’s about to ask a real question; gives it space, like she doesn’t want to ambush me with it.
“So,” she says, stretching the word out gently, “you don’t talk about yourself much.”
I keep my eyes on the road. “That’s not a question.”
She smiles, soft and patient. “Okay. Why don’t you talk about yourself much?”
I exhale slowly, watching the miles roll past, feeling the familiar instinct to deflect rise up out of habit. Joke. Change the subject. Tighten the guard. It’s what I’ve done for years. But this morning feels different, and I’m tired of carrying whole chapters of my life like contraband.
“My parents died when I was twenty,” I say, the words landing between us with a quiet finality. “Car crash.”
Hazel doesn’t gasp or interrupt. She just waits, her face gentle with care and not pity, which is what usually happens when I talk about this.
“They were coming back from a late shift,” I continue, my voice steady even though my grip tightens on the steering wheel, my knuckles white as the leather creaks. “Truck ran a red light. Hit them head-on. It was fast. Clean, they said. Like that was supposed to help.”
She turns fully toward me now, knees pulled up, attention locked in but gentle. Her face falls as the realization hits her. “So—Cam and Leyley’s death—”
I nod, not really sure how to handle all of this being drugged back up, but also I nod. “Hit harder than I’d like to admit.”
“And your brother?” There’s a gentle tilt to her head as she looks at me, her hand reaching over to my knee to give it a gentle squeeze, to just let me know I’m here.
“Sam was two,” I say. “Too young to understand what ‘gone’ really meant. Old enough to ask where Mommy and Daddy were and why they weren’t coming to tuck him into bed.”
I swallow, jaw tightening. “The state didn’t want to split us up, but I was suddenly a legal adult with no plan, no money, and a kid who needed breakfast, and homework help, and someone to make sure he brushed his teeth. So I said yes before anyone could talk me out of it.”
Hazel’s hand drifts over, resting lightly on my forearm, It’s not suffocating, just there to tell me that she cares, and is listening to me, and nothing I’ve said scares her.
“I grew up fast,” I say quietly. “Or at least I stopped letting myself be young. Michigan wasn’t glamorous.
Cold winters, bad roads, long shifts. I worked whatever I could get—mechanic shops, warehouses, security—big emphasis on security, hence when I started doing the hacking thing—anything that paid and didn’t ask questions. ”
“And Sam?” she asks.
“He turned out better than me,” I say with a faint smile.
“Smarter. Kinder. Still believes the world isn’t actively trying to chew him up.
Had a harder time with life than he lets on.
He has some issues with prescription drugs; he got hurt during a soccer game and the doctors gave him some stuff that…
” I grit my teeth. Talking about all of this really makes me realize all I’ve truly done is go back on my word for everyone I’ve ever known.
“He got addicted to pain meds, and he struggled with it for a while. It was a scary time for me, and he’s finally doing better.
He’s actually thinking about going to college, and I just know I don’t want him to follow in my footsteps. ”
She huffs softly. “You know he worships the ground you walk on, right?”
I glance at her, amused. “He hates me.”
“Baby, I promise you he doesn’t,” she says. “He sees it as you saved him. He sees it as you gave up your whole life for him. ”
Needing the conversation, I stare out toward the open road in front of us.
The road stretches on, familiar and foreign at the same time, and I let myself keep going before the courage disappears.
“Cameron and I met in Michigan. Actually the same group that you and Leyla met at. I was a counselor for a while, and the whole time I was going through school. I took time off after my parents died, but again working with that group wasn’t my full time job.
I could just tell that he was a good kid, we had something that didn’t really make sense. We were unlikely friends.
“He was just a kid, but he stuck by me. Once I got my full time job, I moved out to Nashville with Sammy. I was twenty-five at that time and Cameron was eighteen. He was making his name for himself; Cam was younger, already neck-deep in social work, consulting for this company that he figured was doing some shady shit, and that thought they were untouchable. Next thing I know, I was fixing a security flaw for a company that didn’t want to admit it had one. ”
“Let me guess,” Hazel says. “You proved them wrong.”
“Violently,” I reply dryly, a smirk creeping up over my face. “Cameron liked that.”
I tell her about late nights hunched over screens in cheap apartments, about arguing over coffee that tasted like regret, about the first time someone looked at my work and didn’t just see utility, but intention.
Cameron wasn’t a savior. He didn’t rescue me from anything.
He just saw me. Treated me like an equal before I felt like one.
“He taught me to think in negative space,” I say. “What isn’t there matters as much as what is. Especially when people want you to stop looking.”
Hazel nods slowly. “Which is why this—Philly—feels right.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Cameron doesn’t vanish unless he’s boxed in. And Leyla? She doesn’t stop unless stopping is the point. I’m starting to think those journals were planted there to throw us off.”
We fall quiet again, the weight of it settling in but not crushing. Hazel leans back, her gaze forward now, her expression thoughtful but still bright around the edges.
“Thank you for telling me,” she says after a moment. “I know that wasn’t easy.”
I shrug. “Didn’t feel…impossible.”
She grins. “High praise.”
I laugh, shaking my head, and feel something shift inside me. Something old loosening its grip. The past doesn’t hurt less because I say it out loud, but it feels less like it owns me.
The city signs start to appear in the distance; blue, and white, and inevitable.
Philly is coming. So is the truth.
Hazel taps the dashboard. “Okay,” she says, rallying. “When we get there, we need food, coffee, and a plan that doesn’t involve you brooding in silence.”
“I don’t brood,” I say again. She’s really trying to pull something out of me, and I know it’s not the smartest idea, but I gave her my whole life on a platter, and I feel like I finally did something right with this—this woman who I’m starting to realize isn’t just someone who I have no connection to.
I’m starting to realize that she may just be it for me.
She arches a brow. “You just trauma-monologued. You’re allowed to brood a little.”
I smile despite myself and keep driving east, toward the place where everything went quiet—and where we’re about to make it loud again.
“You’re making me feel like I don’t have to.”
“You make me feel that way too, Z.”