I swear under my breath and put my hands on her waist.
She goes still.
It takes exactly three seconds to boost her the rest of the way in. Three seconds where my fingers feel the heat of her through the thin fabric of her hoodie, where her breath hitches and her hand catches my forearm like she’s not sure whether she’s steady or not.
“I got you,” I say before my brain can remind me that’s a bad idea to admit.
She drops into the seat, cheeks pink in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. “I was fine.”
“Sure,” I say. “You and gravity looked like you were having a productive disagreement.”
She buckles in with more force than necessary and mutters something about how my truck is probably compensating for something.
I decide not to ask.
By the time I slide behind the wheel, my palms remember the shape of her more clearly than they remember the steering column. I flex them once on the leather, hard, and pull away from the curb.
Lucy Falls rolls by in familiar winter colors—gray sky, brick storefronts, the hardware store’s Christmas display half-finished in the front window. People with coffee cups. Kids in puffy coats. Life going on like there isn’t a man out there who buried girls in mountains and is now playing word games with one small woman’s nervous system.
I catch Twig watching all of it in the side window, expression distant.
“You’re quiet,” I say.
“You told me to be,” she says.
“I told you not to poke the bear,” I say. “I didn’t tell you to shut down.”
She’s silent for a moment. Then, quietly: “He called me special.”
I grip the wheel harder than I need to. “He’s fucking with you.”
She fiddles with the zipper of her hoodie, the metal teeth scratching softly.
“Last year it was…scary,” she says slowly. “Jason. The cabin. The mountain. But I was still…outside of it, I guess. Like I was watching something terrible through glass. I got to choose how close I stood.”
“And now?” I ask.
“Now the glass talks back,” she says. “Now Henry’s saying, ‘Hey, remember how much you helped last time? Do it again. Be useful for me.’ And my brain’s like—” She makes a quiet, frustrated noise. “My brain likes being useful. It doesn’t care who I’m being usefulforif I’m not careful.”
I understand that more than I want to.
“You’re not useful for him,” I say. “You’re a threat to him. That’s why he’s trying to get in your head first.”
She snorts. “Flattering.”
“I’m not trying to flatter you,” I say. “It’s just facts.”
She looks over at me then, really looks, like she’s weighing the words.
“You know,” she says, “you keep saying I’m not a job. Earlier. Inside.”
I did say that. I wasn’t planning to repeat it.
“That was a poor choice of phrasing,” I say.
“Why?” she asks. “You’re Kael’s favorite blunt instrument. People are jobs. Problems. Lists to clear. That’s not an insult; that’s…how you do what you do.”
“You’re not an item on a list,” I say. I don’t know how to fucking explainwhatshe is. “You’re a…situation.”
