45. Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Five
Wrenley
The house feels too quiet. Not peaceful. Not sleepy. Empty. I pad barefoot down the stairs, one hand on the railing, Liam’s shirt hanging loose off my shoulder. The wood is cold under my feet, the kind of cold that raises tiny bumps along my arms.
“Liam?” I call softly, half-expecting him to answer from the kitchen. Nothing. In the kitchen, the lights are off. The counters are untouched. The coffee machine sits dark and silent. No mug. No spoon. No half-filled pot left for everyone else. He always starts the coffee. Always. My stomach sinks.
“Liam?” I say again, louder this time. Still nothing. When I step into the foyer, Hugo is there, stretched out on the rug, head on his paws, eyes fixed on the door with intensity that twists something in my chest.
“Hugo?” My voice sounds small. He lifts his head slowly and looks at me… then looks back at the door, and whines. Not a soft sound. Not a greeting. A mourning. My breath stalls.
“What’s wrong, boy?” I kneel beside him and run my hand over his head. His ears flick back, his body tense under my palm. He looks at the door again and whines once more, louder. It feels like a warning.
“Hugo,” I whisper, voice trembling now, “What is it?”
He stands abruptly, nudges my thigh with his head, bounding down the hallway without waiting to see if I follow. I do. My heart is in my throat. “Hugo? Where are you—”
He stops at the war room door, nudges it with his nose, and it swings open an inch.
Then he sits. Waiting. My pulse pounds in my ears.
I push the door open fully. The world tilts.
The table is empty except for three things.
A folded note, an opened laptop, paused at zero seconds, and a small metallic tracker stained with dried blood.
“No…” the word cracks out of me, thin and breaking. Hugo nudges my leg again, whimpering this time, low, aching, pleading. I take one shaking step toward the table. Then another.
“MAX!” The scream rips out of me before I can think, tearing something raw in my throat.
“MAX!”
Footsteps thunder overhead. Doors slam. Voices collide down the hall, confused, tense, half-awake but ready to kill whatever scared me enough to scream like that. The first person to round the corner is Max, wearing the joggers he slept in, gun in hand.
“What—Wrenley?” His voice stops dead. One by one, they flood in behind him.
Torque with a blade. Wrecker with a shotgun.
Riot is already cracking his knuckles. Elias and Margot enter wide-eyed and breathless.
Doc and Daisy stand in the doorway. They all freeze.
Because I’m not screaming anymore. I’m just standing there.
One hand braced on the table. Staring down at the pieces he left behind.
The note, the tracker, the laptop's glowing screen. Max’s eyes flick to my face. Something in him shatters. He rushes forward, tossing his gun on the chair next to me, reaching for me like he’s afraid I might fall apart before he gets there.
“What—Sparrow, what happened?”
My lips part. The words barely make it out. “He left.”
The whole room goes still. Max’s head jerks, confused, turning to fear. “What do you mean he left?”
I lift the folded note with a trembling finger, Liam’s handwriting. Max’s name. The paper feels like a weight I can’t hold, like it’s burning through my skin.
Torque steps closer, sees the blood-stained tracker beside it, and swears violently.
“He fucking cut it out.” His voice breaks into a snarl. “He doesn’t want us following him.”
Riot swears, pacing. Wrecker grips the back of a chair hard enough to splinter it. Margot covers her mouth. Elias picks up the tracker with shaking hands, studying it with wide, horrified eyes.
Max takes the note from me gently and reads it. His throat bobs hard. His eyes flick up, first to me, then to the others. I swear the world changes in the silence between his inhale and his exhale. When he finally speaks, his voice is hoarse.
“Sparrow…”
He hands me the note like it’s something sacred and devastating all at once. Then he steps back and looks at the laptop’s glowing screen. A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Play the video.”
For a moment, no one breathes. Hugo lets out a soft, broken whine behind me. My fingers hover over the keyboard. I can barely feel my heartbeat. “Wrenley,” Max whispers, standing close enough to catch me when I break, “Hit play.”
The moment I hit play, the war room falls into a suffocating silence. The laptop screen flickers, then sharpens. Liam appears. Not the version of him from under the oak tree yesterday, or that I fell asleep beside last night. Not warm. Not peaceful. This Liam is tired. Hollow-eyed. Shadowed.
Behind him, the soft, aching melody of our song fills the room in a whisper.
No one moves. No one breathes. Max’s hand finds my lower back.
Torque’s jaw ticks. Margot presses her fingers to her mouth.
Wrecker steps closer to Daisy without even thinking.
Riot’s fists clench at his sides. Elias bows his head, bracing for impact.
Then Liam starts speaking. It’s like the world shifts beneath our feet. His voice pours through the speakers, soft and raw. A confession unraveling. A man who already knows he’s breaking our hearts.
He tells me he loves me. More than he ever should have.
More than he thought he ever could. He tells me I was his miracle.
That I gave him something he didn’t know he could feel.
That I saved parts of him no one else could reach.
He talks about redemption and promises. How sometimes loving someone means breaking your vow to protect them.
He talks about always, about walking into hell alone. He talks about brothers, about family, about all of us. He’s a man leaving a piece of himself behind.
Everything inside me twists, sharp and violent, like my ribs are closing around my heart.
The room listens without interrupting. Without flinching or hiding.
Torque's eyes are glassy. Margot’s shoulders shake.
Riot mutters. “No, no, no” under his breath, as if he says it enough, the universe will undo this.
Wrecker wipes at his face with the back of his hand.
Elias grips the edge of the table so hard his knuckles bleach white.
Max’s arm slides around my waist, holding me in place because he must feel the tremor rolling through me. The music swells behind Liam’s voice, low and haunting. And the last words come,
“I will love you for the rest of my life. And after. And after that. And every version of the world where I get to find you again. And I will find you again. In this life or the next.”
The screen goes black. The music stops. No one moves. No one speaks. The only sound is my breathing, sharp, high, and uneven. Like something inside me is cracking open. The air is suddenly too thin. Too tight. Too wrong. My vision blurs.
“Sparrow?” Max whispers, reaching to turn me to face him.
But I take a step back, then another. “I…” My throat closes. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Before anyone can stop me, I shove past Riot, past Elias, past the table, and I run. Down the hall. Bare feet slapping against the floor. Hugo is chasing two steps behind me. If I had stayed in that room a second longer, I would have broken into pieces I can’t put back together.
The hallway blurs as I run. The walls feel too close, the air too tight, my lungs clawing for something that won’t come. Hugo’s nails click frantically behind me, ragged as he tries to keep up. I don’t stop. I can’t.
The garden door slams open with my weight, and cold morning air hits me like a slap.
Sharp. Biting. Real. The grass is wet under my feet as I stumble into the yard, almost falling twice before I make it to the oak tree.
The same place Liam held me yesterday. The same place he whispered he loved me in the sun.
My knees buckle, and I drop to the ground hard, palms sinking into the damp earth. I can’t breathe. My chest locks up, tight and crushing, like iron clamps squeezing around my ribs. The world tilts sideways, the tree sways. My vision swims, darkening at the edges.
“No—no—no—”
The words don’t sound like mine. They scrape out of my throat, raw and shredded. Hugo whines, circling me in frantic loops before shoving his body against my side. He presses his head under my arm, trying to pull me back, grounding me, anchoring me, because he knows, I swear to God he knows.
“L—” My tongue won’t work. My jaw shakes. My throat closes. “L—Liam—” The sound breaks apart before it finishes. Hugo paws at my thigh, huffing, whining, nudging me harder, trying to pull me out of the terrifying blankness flooding through my head. But I’m sinking deeper.
“Why? Why would you... Why—”
“Wrenley!” Max’s voice tears through the fog as he sprints across the yard. He falls to his knees behind me, hands on my shoulders, turning me toward him.
“Sparrow, look at me—look at me, baby, breathe—”
I can’t. I can’t breathe. I choke on air that won’t go in.
“Sparrow—hey—hey—” He cups my face, thumbs on my cheeks, his voice trembling but strong. “Breathe for me. In—out—come on—”
My body convulses with the effort. My breath shudders and breaks. My throat feels like it’s closing. He pulls me into his chest, hands firm on my back, rocking me slightly like he’s trying to remind my body how to be alive.
“It’s okay—I’ve got you—I’ve got you—you’re safe—you’re safe—”
But I’m not. Not without Liam. Not when he left. Not when he said goodbye like he knew he wouldn’t—
“Why—” It tears out of me, raw and broken. “Why did you do that?”
My voice cracks, rising, and splintering. “What did you do?”
“You don’t get to do that–” I choke, shaking my head like I can undo it. “You don’t get to just leave—”
My hands claw at nothing, reaching for someone who isn’t there. “You can’t leave us!” I scream, the words ripping out of my chest. “You don’t get to decide that!”
Max tightens his hold, pulling me closer as I thrash against him. “I know. I know, Sparrow. I know.”
“No—you don’t—” I sob, my voice breaking apart. “He promised—he said—he—” The words collapse into nothing, into gasping, shaking breaths.
“You said always—” I choke. “You don’t get to break that!”
Hugo presses in closer, whining into my lap. Then heavy footsteps beat across the grass. Torque.
He skids to a stop, eyes wide when he sees the state I’m in.
“Fuck, Max—”
“Help me,” Max breathes, trying to keep my thrashing contained. Torque drops beside me instantly, his huge hands steady as he frames my face, forcing my eyes to his.
“Wrenley.” His voice is low, firm, and commanding. “Look at me.”
My eyes flick wildly, finally landing on his. “That’s it.” He murmurs, leaning closer. “Stay right here with me. You’re here. You’re safe. We’re right here.”
My chest spasms. A sob tears out of me so violently it feels like it shreds my ribcage. Torque pulls me against him, Max still behind me, the two of them holding me upright as Hugo shoves his head under my arm again, whining desperately.
I’m surrounded. Held. Anchored. But nothing stops the truth from hitting me over and over like waves. Liam is gone. He left. He walked out into danger alone. He said goodbye, and the pieces of me he left behind, are shattering in my hands.
Torque keeps grounding me with his voice, slow, steady, pressing through the fog. Max is behind me, arms wrapped tight around my ribs, matching my breaths to his. Hugo leans against my leg, vibrating with worry.
Everything still feels wrong. Tilted. Hollow. My breaths come out jagged, but they’re happening. My hands shake, but they’re loosening. My vision is blurry, but the edges are starting to return.
I’m not okay. But I’m not drowning anymore. Then new footsteps, light and small, rush across the yard.
“Wrenley?’ Daisy’s voice. I barely lift my head before Wrecker is there, sweeping in fast, positioning himself between her and the sight of me crumpled in Max’s arms.
“Daisy, no,” Wrecker murmurs, soft but firm. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s go inside.”
“But she—”
“She’s okay,” he promises, guiding her away. “They’ve got her.”
Her voice breaks. “Wren—”
“Come on. Look at me. Not at her. Let’s go.”
The sound of them leaving claws at my chest. I suck in a breath, sharper than the last. My vision clears a bit. My fingers twitch. Max notices instantly.
“There you go,” he murmurs into my hair. “That’s it. You’re coming back.”
Torque exhales like he’s been holding his breath for minutes. “Good. That’s real good. Wren.”
Another breath. Then another. My lungs finally expand more fully, the ice around my ribs easing. I swallow hard and lift my head an inch.
“Max…” I whisper.
“Yeah, Sparrow. I’m right here.” His hand slides to my cheek, thumb tracing my skin.
“I—” The word breaks. I try again. “I’m…okay.”
“You will be,” he says. “Just keep breathing with me.”
I nod, swallowing hard, forcing the air into my lungs to match his until the sharp edge in my chest dulls.
Until it doesn’t hurt as much. The world steadies.
Not completely, but enough. Somewhere behind him, I hear Torque shift.
A step, then another. He gives us space without a word, his feet soft on the ground before the sound fades.
I focus on Max. On the rhythm. In. Out. In. Out. It works, or it almost does.
“I just need a minute,” I murmur. “I’m fine. I just—need a second alone, if that’s okay.”
Max hesitates. I feel it in the way his hand stills against my face, the way his eyes search mine like he’s trying to decide if I’m lying to him or myself.
“I think I’ve got it,” I add quietly.
Something in me must convince him. Maybe he just knows I need to believe it. He nods once, taking a couple of steps back. Not far. Never far.
I draw in another breath. It doesn’t catch this time. Good. I nod again, and push myself to stand. For a second, it works. But suddenly the world sways. Not from panic. From something deeper. Heavier. Like a light going out inside my skull. Max feels it before I do.
“Sparrow?”
I blink once. The oak tree spins. The sky tilts. Torque’s voice sounds far away. “Max—her knees—”
Everything drops out beneath me. Darkness begins to crash without warning. No warning breath. No warning thought. Just gone. Every movement is going in slow motion, voices filter in like I’m underneath rushing water.
“Sparrow!” Max lunges forward, arms wrapping around me before I hit the ground. He gathers me against his chest, lifting me with a frantic strength that makes Hugo bark once in alarm.
Torque curses. “Fuck! Get her inside!”
Max doesn’t wait. He stands, adjusting my limp weight in his arms, cradling my head against his shoulder as he starts toward the house, fast, determined, barely stopping short of running.
“Torque!” he shouts, voice breaking. “Get Doc. Now!”
Torque bolts. Hugo follows at Max’s heels. The morning air feels colder, sharper, wrong. Max presses his cheek to my forehead as he carries me inside. “I’ve got your Sparrow,” he whispers. “I’ve got you.”
My world turns completely dark.