Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
WAIT IN THE TRUCK
HAZEL
Mornings after sex always feel louder than the night itself.
Not because of sound—because of space. The kind you don’t notice until it’s there, stretched thin between two people who were tangled together hours ago and are now carefully not touching at all.
Zack moves around the safe house like he’s already halfway gone. Efficient. Focused. Back in his boots before I’ve fully shaken sleep from my bones. He doesn’t avoid me exactly, but he doesn’t linger, either. I feel it in my chest the way you feel weather change before the sky does.
I remember everything.
The way we barely made it inside last night before gravity took over. The way it wasn’t frantic, wasn’t desperate, just…inevitable. How afterward, in the quiet, wrapped in sheets that smelled like him, the words slipped out of me without permission.
I love you.
I hadn’t meant to say it. Not yet. Not like that. But it was true, and it felt safe in the dark, pressed against his shoulder, heartbeat steady beneath my cheek.
He hadn’t pulled away.
But he hadn’t said it back.
Now we’re in the car again, heading back toward the Philly safe house after a supply run, and the silence is thick enough that I could carve my name into it. The radio is on low, some forgettable song humming along, but it does nothing to fill the gap.
Zack’s hands are tight on the steering wheel. His jaw is set, his eyes never leaving the road.
“You’re being weird,” I say finally.
“I’m fine.”
The words come too fast. Too clipped.
I turn in my seat to face him. “You’ve said that three times in the last ten minutes.”
“I’m staying focused,” he replies. “That’s all.”
“Focused doesn’t usually mean emotionally constipated,” I say lightly, but my stomach twists. “You didn’t even make fun of my coffee order.”
“That’s because it was objectively terrible,” he says, his tone flat.
I blink. “Wow. Okay. So you are mad.”
“I’m not mad,” he says, immediately. “Hazel—”
“You’re short with me. You won’t look at me. And you slept exactly on your side of the bed like there was an invisible line you were afraid to cross.” I pause, then soften my voice. “If this is about last night—”
“It’s not,” he cuts in.
The denial comes too sharp to be believable. His words are too sharp and they sting more than I want them to.
I study his profile, the familiar angles suddenly closed off, like he’s pulled armor back on piece by piece. This is the Zack I first met, the one who hides inside responsibility and calls it discipline.
“You keep saying everything’s fine,” I say quietly, “but you’re already gone again.”
His grip tightens. He doesn’t let me in, he gives me the cold answer. “We’re about to try to save two people who’ve been missing for two months from an unknown location. I don’t get to be distracted.”
“By me?”
He exhales hard, frustration flickering across his face before he reins it in. “By anything.”
I shake my head. “You weren’t distracted last night.”
Silence slams down between us, an invisible wall that hurts as it lands right on top of me.
The city passes outside the windows; gray, and busy, and completely uninterested in the fact that my heart is doing something complicated and fragile in my chest. Even though we’re in the same city we arrived in yesterday, it feels so different, darker, and I’m not sure if it’s my heart or the city passing us buy that feels ever changing and broken.
“Did I mess things up?” I ask finally, hating how small the question sounds even though I refuse to let my voice shake. It feels like I’m losing this war in my own head, and it’s a losing battle that I’m not ready to accept.
He doesn’t answer right away. When he does, it’s careful. Measured. “No.”
But he still doesn’t look at me, and God it hurts.
I swallow. “Then why does it feel like you’re punishing yourself for something?”
That gets him. He glances over, just for a second, and in that flash I see it—it’s not anger, not regret. It’s fear. The deep, quiet kind that settles in your bones and convinces you that anything good is temporary by nature.
“I don’t have room for this right now,” he says, softer. “For…feelings. If something goes wrong—”
“So you’re preemptively shutting down,” I finish. “Because if you don’t let yourself have it, you can’t lose it.”
His silence is answer enough.
I turn back toward the window, jaw tight, forcing myself to breathe. I don’t regret what I said. I don’t regret loving him. What hurts is watching him shove it into a locked box and label it later, like later is guaranteed.
“We can save Cameron and Leyla,” I say quietly, “and still be human.”
He says nothing.
The safehouse comes into view, brick and unremarkable, and he pulls to the curb like it’s just another stop on the list. Just another task.
But when he kills the engine, his voice drops, rough around the edges. “I meant it when I said everything’s fine.”
I look at him then, really look at him. “I know you believe that,” I say. “I just don’t.”
He finally meets my eyes, something conflicted flickering there before he looks away again.
We get out of the car and head toward the door, heading inside to what could only be seen as our downfall.
And even though he’s only a few steps ahead of me, it feels like he’s already miles away—lost somewhere between duty and fear, carrying love like it’s another thing that might get someone hurt.
I don’t know how to pull him back yet.
But I know I’m not letting go. He’s right in this instance that we need to focus on saving our best friends and getting to the bottom of this.