Chapter 13 #2
She closes her eyes. “Inside were a change of clothes. My wallet. And money. Five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. Brand new, like they’d just been pulled from the bank.”
My grip tightens. The pain I’ve felt all of these years pales in comparison to hers. She was almost killed, abducted, and forced to live with the burden of my hate.
“I changed into the clothes,” she says. “My pajamas were…ruined. I don’t know how long I sat there, trying to figure out if this was a nightmare. But my chest hurt, my throat burned, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw flames. So I stood up and walked out.”
“Where?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I want to know.
“A side door,” she says. “It opened into an alley. I still don’t know what building I was in. Somewhere near the hospital, I guess. I didn’t stop walking until I saw a bus station.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. Her eyes are swollen, but steady. “I bought a ticket to San Francisco. Rented a room that smelled like mildew. Got a job waiting tables. Saved up. Applied to nursing school. Changed my last name to Rae so no one could trace me back here easily.”
Rae. Her middle name. I file that away with a sick twist in my gut. If I’d looked…if I’d pushed…if I hadn’t been so angry—
“All I had was the money, my license, and a picture of us from graduation that I kept in my wallet.” Her mouth trembles into a sad smile. “I texted you. Called my mom. Told her I needed a fresh start. Then I threw the phone away.”
Of all the things she could’ve grabbed, she took a photo of us. My ten years of fury stumble on that detail and come up short.
“Did the threats stop?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah. Once I left Wildhaven, I never heard from that number again. Nothing. For ten years, I was…fine. Lonely sometimes. But I was okay.”
“Did you and your mom…” I swallow. “Keep in touch?”
“Here and there,” she says, drawing shapes in the sand with her fingertip.
“She’d call when she was sober enough. I kept her at a distance.
I couldn’t bring this back to her. But in the last year, she started calling more.
Sounded…clearer. She got a job. Went to meetings.
She was trying.” Her voice breaks. “I didn’t let myself trust it. ”
“You must’ve been terrified to come back,” I say.
“I was.” She looks out at the water. “But she died. And I thought…It’s been ten years. Whoever threatened me got what they wanted. I stayed away. Maybe it was safe.”
“But you came home and within a few hours—”
“I almost got hit by a car,” she finishes. “Yeah.”
She pulls out her phone and hands it to me. A text from an unknown number stares up from the screen.
The sheriff won’t be able to save either of you next time.
My throat goes tight.
“I was going to leave,” she says. “I packed. I got into my car. But my tire was flat. I couldn’t go anywhere. So I went to the bar because I needed people around me. I needed not to feel…” She shivers. “Hunted.”
“And Gabe was there.”
“He saw me shaking,” she says. “He asked what was wrong. I showed him the text, but that’s all. He said he’d try to trace the number.”
“You wanted to run again,” I say, not accusing, just stating facts.
She looks at me, eyes wide and shining. “That car could’ve just as easily hit you, Luke,” she says. “It almost did. It’s selfish to stay. But Gabe told me to fight for my life back. And then I read my mom’s letter, and—” Her arms wrap tight around her torso. “I’m scared. Not just for me.”
I pull her back against my chest. She quivers in my arms like a wire stretched too tight.
“Do you think you can ever trust me again?” she whispers into my shirt.
Trust used to be the air between us—so natural I never noticed it. Now it feels like blown glass: beautiful, fragile, one wrong move and it shatters.
“I’m so sorry, Isla,” I say, my voice cracking. “I should’ve looked for you. I should’ve pushed. I was so damn angry, I let it be an excuse.”
“I needed you to be angry,” she says quietly. “If you’d come for me, I wouldn’t have had the strength to stay gone. And I had to stay gone. It was the only way I knew to keep you alive.”
“I don’t want you to leave again,” I admit. The truth tastes like blood and salt.
“The threat isn’t gone,” she says. “That car wasn’t random. It was a reminder.”
A chill slides down my spine. “Then this time we don’t pretend it isn’t real,” I say. “This time we face it.”
“We,” she repeats softly.
Her fingers lift, tracing the curve of my cheek, the rough line of stubble. It roots me to the spot, pins every spinning thought in place. Her eyes shine, not with the easy laughter I remember, but with something raw and fragile and honest.
“I’m scared, Luke,” she whispers.
My brow creases. “I know,” I say. “I can’t pretend to understand what it’s been like in your head all this time. But I’m here now. Gabe’s here. My brothers are here. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”
I hesitate. “Just promise me you’ll do what we ask when it comes to staying safe. No more running off by yourself. No more keeping this shit quiet.”
She nods, teeth worrying her bottom lip until a small indent forms there. The motion has always undone me.
The air thickens around us, heavy with things we’ve said and all the things we haven’t. I never thought I’d find myself here again, staring into blue eyes that know every version of me—good, bad, and broken.
Her gaze holds pain, guilt, and something else. Something that looks a lot like the hope I’ve been trying to smother.
It’s that flicker that undoes me.
I slide my hand into her hair at the nape of her neck, fingers threading into familiar strands. She doesn’t pull away. If anything, she leans in.
I tug gently, guiding her toward me, closing the inches that have been a decade wide.