“Bullshit.”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t start.”
I took a step forward, tone razor-edged.“Tell me the truth. Did we come back just to run again? Is there a new boyfriendturned potential payload waiting in the wings?” I was tired of it all—the new relationships that inevitably went wrong and resulted in us packing up and hightailing it out of whatever town we’d squatted in.
Her face shuttered. “I told you. This is the last time. You’ll finish school here. Blackwood opens doors?—”
“It also opens graves,”I said, low and flat.
She flinched, barely. But I saw it.
Her hand landed on my shoulder with the weight of punctuation. “Have a little faith.”
I stared until she dropped it. Faith had no place here. Not after last time. Because last time, someone died. And Mom acted as though theKingshadn’t pulled the trigger.
I’d gotten there after it happened. She’d seen more than I had. Then her hand had clamped over my mouth, my body shielded by hers as she got me the hell out of there. We couldn’t be seen. I knew it just as much as she had. She had more information about that night than I did, even though I’d seen enough.
Her hands had trembled when she packed. She flinched at shadows. And she wouldn’t tell me who pulled the trigger, just hinted at who was there. It was enough to buy my silence. This town has a ruling order, and crossing them was detrimental.
I followed her deeper into the kitchen, watching her stack another plate into a cabinet that looked ready to collapse. For the hundredth time, I pushed for the real reason we’d returned. “Why here? Why now?”
Her back stayed to me. “It was time.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I have,” she said, her tone clipped enough to make the air feel colder.
Mom was my ride-or-die. The one who could read me without a word and make me laugh even when everything was falling apart.
At least, that was how it used to be.
But ever since she’d gotten word about this job, something had been off. The easy camaraderie, the I’ve-always-got-your-back steadiness vanished. She shut me out, held me at arm’s length.
My chest felt like it’d been hollowed out by her words, and I curled my hands into fists. “We ran for a reason, Mom. Did that just… go away?”
She turned just enough for me to catch the flash of warning in her gaze. “You’ll be fine if you keep your head down. Focus on school. Let me handle the rest.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s all I’m saying.”
I frowned. “Blackwood Academy is expensive. How are we affording it? I thought we blew through our savings.”
“Mila, please.” Her shoulders tensed. “I’ve got it handled.”
My stomach twisted. Memories, dark and blurred at the edges, crept in like smoke. Blood on the ground and sightless eyes. I’d spent the past year burying it all beneath a new school. But trauma didn’t vanish. It waited.
And here, in Blackwood, it waited with teeth.
I didn’t wait around for another excuse. I retreated to my room, dropped onto the mattress, then pulled out my phone, opening theBlackwood Bladespage.
My heart skipped a beat, and my stomach flipped. There he was. Luke. Sin wrapped in varsity pride. The kind of guy whose name girls tattooed on their ribs as if it were scripture. The one they warned you about but followed anyway. He hadn’t changed. If anything, the edge was sharper. The jaw more brutal. The confidence? Still weaponized.
Theo. Jax. Chase. Still beside him. As though nothing had ever happened. Like I was never here. Theo’s dirty-blond hair curled just past his ears now, windswept and effortlessly perfect—he always looked like he walked off a magazine cover, and he knew it. Jax stood solid at Luke’s right, dark-brown hair cropped tight on the sides, a little unruly on top. His green eyes scanned the crowd as if he was already looking for a fight to finish. And Chase—Avery’s twin, blond and blue-eyed, broader than I remembered—leaned against a tree as though it owed him something.
I tapped over toAvery’spage. Chase’s sister. My once-friend. We’d been inseparable—until I ghosted her along with everyone else. She’d tried calling. Messaging. She even found my new number somehow. But I cut her out like everyone else, ditched the phone and used a burner from there on out.
Still, part of me hoped she’d remember. That some flicker of that friendship remained. But she’d moved on. Bonfires. Group shots. Homecoming prep. Her smile was bright and whole and surrounded by people who didn’t ask questions.
