Prologue #2
“Of course.” Dad put the phone in his hands. “Do you remember the number?”
Liam nodded. His hands shook—just barely—but he steadied them against his knees and dialed. Each beep of the buttons sounded too loud in the quiet room.
He held the phone to his ear and stared straight ahead, not blinking.
“Uncle Owen?” His voice cracked on the first word, but he swallowed it down. “Yes, sir.” A tiny pause. He squeezed his eyes shut. “There was… something happened.” He took a sharp breath, chest shuddering. “Mom and Dad are dead.”
Sophia broke all over again at those words, burying her face in my shirt until it was wet through. Mom wrapped her arms around both of us, rocking gently, whispering soft things into Sophia’s hair.
Liam kept talking. Kept holding himself together by sheer will.
“Yes, sir. Sophia’s with me. We’re safe.” Another shaky inhale. “We’re at the Wilsons’. Next door.” He blinked hard, but no tears fell. “Yes, sir. We’ll be here.”
He handed the phone to my dad, fingers trembling worse now. Dad stepped away to finish the call—quiet, tense words I couldn’t make out. Our address. His cell number. Promises that he would keep these children safe.
When Dad hung up, he came to Liam and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“They’re already on the road,” he said softly. “They’ll be here by morning.”
Liam nodded once. Just once. “Thank you, sir.”
He didn’t cry. He didn’t break. He didn’t fall apart.
He just stood there—fifteen years old and trying to be a mountain.
But his eyes… His eyes stayed locked on me. Like he was waiting for the moment the ground finally gave out beneath him.
And I held his gaze because I knew—deep down—that if I looked away, he’d shatter.
Mom brought down water, sandwiches that no one touched, extra blankets. "Try to get some sleep," she said softly, kissing my forehead, then hesitating before gently touching Liam's shoulder. "We're right upstairs if you need anything."
They left the basement light on, the door cracked. I could hear them moving around upstairs, making phone calls, their voices low and worried.
Sophia finally cried herself to sleep, curled into a tiny ball on one side of the pullout. Liam sat on the edge, staring at nothing, still in the same clothes, blood on his shoes that I tried not to look at.
"Lee?" I whispered.
Nothing.
"I'm gonna go tell Mom I’m staying down here with you. I'll be right back."
I ran upstairs and grabbed my pillow. Mom caught me at the top of the basement stairs.
"Steph—"
"I'm staying with them." I met her eyes. "Please, Mom. He needs me."
She studied my face for a long moment, then nodded. "Okay. But you come get us if you need anything."
I crept back down to the basement. Sophia was still asleep, but Liam had moved. He was sitting on the floor beside the couch, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, making himself as small as possible.
I sat down beside him, close but not touching. We stayed like that for maybe an hour, just sitting in the dim light, listening to Sophia's breathing and the occasional creak of the house.
Then I heard it—the tiniest sound, like air escaping through a crack. I looked over and saw the tears sliding silently down his face.
"Oh, Lee."
I wrapped my arms around him, and this time he didn't freeze. He turned into me, buried his face in my shoulder, and broke completely apart. Not loud, dramatic sobs—Liam had never been loud about anything—but these horrible, quiet shudders that shook his whole body.
“They’re gone.” The words barely made it out of him—just a thin, cracked whisper against my shirt. “They’re just… gone. Someone came into our house and… and they’re gone.”
His whole body shook, every breath a jagged hitch that seemed to stab through his ribs. I wrapped my arms around him tighter, my own tears falling into his dark hair, disappearing there like they’d always belonged.
“I know,” I whispered. “I know, Lee. I’m so sorry.”
“Sophia saw it.” The words tore out of him, raw and shredded. “She saw them, Steph. She saw the whole thing.”
He sucked in a sharp, choking breath. “She was hiding in the pantry, and she saw—she saw—”
“Shh.” I ran my hand through his hair, slow and soft, the way Mom did when I was sick or scared. “She’s safe now. You’re both safe.”
But he shook his head against me, sharp, frantic. “I couldn’t protect them.”
His voice broke entirely on that last word—them.
“I heard the door break,” he choked. “I heard it, and grabbed Sophia, and I hid her, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t get to them in time. I didn’t know what to do—I didn’t know—”
“Liam—”
“I should’ve stopped him.” The words were a knife he plunged into his own chest. “I should’ve saved them. I should’ve—God, Steph, I should’ve—”
“Liam.” I cupped the back of his head, pulling him tighter to me, trying to hold him together with nothing but my hands and my heart. “You saved Sophia. You did exactly what you had to do.”
He shook again—a violent tremor that made my own breath stutter.
“He always said—” Liam swallowed hard, like the words were lodged deep in his throat. “He said to take care of them. To take care of Mom. To take care of Sophia. And I—I promised—I—”
“You kept that promise,” I whispered fiercely. “You kept Sophia safe. You did everything, Liam. Everything you could.”
But he wasn’t hearing it. Or maybe he was hearing it and rejecting every word.
Because he cried then—really cried—his face buried in my shoulder, his fingers twisted in my shirt like he needed something to anchor him in a world that had just ripped itself apart.
Silent sobs. Sobs that came from somewhere so deep it felt like the ground around us tilted with each one. Sobs no fifteen-year-old boy should ever have to make.
I held him through all of it. Rocking him gently. Whispering nonsense words into his hair. Trying to cover the fracture lines forming in him with whatever comfort I had left.
Knowing—somehow—that this was the moment that would carve itself into him forever. The moment he decided he had failed the people he loved. The moment he learned what helplessness tasted like.
The moment that would become the wound he’d spend the rest of his life trying to outrun.
When he finally managed to speak again, his voice came out small. Fragile. “Uncle Owen and Aunt Louisa will… they’ll take care of us.”
He swallowed hard. “Dad always said if anything ever happened, they’d come. They’ve got a ranch. A real one. Horses. Cowboys. Everything.”
“That sounds good,” I said softly, even though the thought of him leaving Austin—leaving me—made something sharp twist in my chest.
“It’s really far away. Five hours.” He stared past me, eyes glassy, unfocused. “Like… a whole different world away.”
“I know.”
His gaze flicked back to mine, sudden and desperate. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Hey,” I whispered, pulling back enough to cup his face in my hands. His skin was blotchy and damp, still warm from tears. “You’re not leaving me. We’re best friends. That doesn’t change because now matter how far you go.”
His lower lip trembled. His big brown eyes—usually bright, full of trouble and jokes—looked absolutely shattered. “Promise?”
“Promise.” I brushed my thumb under his eye, catching the fresh tear before it fell. “We’ll text and call and email. I’ll visit you. You’ll visit me. And when we’re older… maybe…”
He blinked. “Maybe what?”
“Maybe we can be neighbors again.” The words were soft, shaky, a hope too big for the moment but true.
The smallest ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. “I’d like that.”
A soft whimper came from the pullout couch, and Liam immediately turned toward the sound—instinct snapping into place like a muscle memory.
He climbed onto the mattress beside Sophia with careful, protective movements.
Even in sleep, she curled into him, her tiny hands clutching his shirt like she was afraid he’d disappear.
I grabbed a blanket, draped it over both of them, then sank onto the carpeted floor beside the bed. His hand dangled over the edge, and mine found it automatically, our fingers tangling together.
“Sleep,” I whispered. “I’ll keep watch.”
“Steph…” His voice cracked again, tired and scared and impossibly young.
“I’ve got you, Lee.” I squeezed his hand. “I always will.”
He squeezed back—weak but certain—and eventually, the exhaustion dragged him under. His grip loosened, his breathing slowed, his whole body sagging into the safety he didn’t trust but desperately needed.
But I didn’t sleep.
I stayed awake on that basement floor, holding his hand, listening to Sophia’s soft, broken breaths, and watching over them like I could keep the world away by sheer will.
Because when your best friend’s world shatters, you hold the pieces. You stay. You keep watch. You make promises you’re too young to understand, but mean with everything you have.
I didn’t know then that Owen and Louisa Blackwood would arrive at dawn—Louisa sweeping both kids into the fiercest hug I’d ever seen, Owen handling every adult detail with quiet, commanding strength.
I didn’t know that within forty-eight hours, Liam and Sophia would be in a car on their way to Copper Creek, beginning new lives as Blackwoods in all but blood.
All I knew was that Liam Walker had lost everything except his sister.
And I would do anything—anything—to make sure he didn’t lose himself, too.