“Hey.” I take a slow step forward. Hands open. “It’s okay.”
She takes a small step back. Not far. But enough to stab something in me.
I don’t move closer. I hold still. Her walls are back up; mortared with fresh fear and years of survival. And I respect it. I won’t break them down by force. Not now.
My voice softens. “I’ll have Nash look for the guitar. The notebooks. Everything. If he took it, we’ll track it. If he sold it, we’ll get it back. If he broke it—”
“I’ll kill him,” she snaps, voice fierce and sharp.
My lips twitch. “We will,” I say. “But I don’t think he had time. He’s running scared now. There’s nowhere he can go that we won’t find him.”
She watches me as though she’s trying to decide if she can believe that. As though she’s never had anyone offer to fight for the things that make her who she is. Not just her safety. Her voice.
Then her voice drops. Fragile, unsure. “Why would you do that for me?”
I step forward again—slow, steady. Not touching. Just close enough for her to feel the weight of the truth.
“Because you’re one of us,” I say, voice rough. “Whether you like it or not.”
She holds my gaze, and I let her see everything. My fury, my need, my loyalty. All of it.
For once, she doesn’t look away.
Chapter 20
Candace
Iliecurledonmy side, my back a stubborn wall between me and Malachi, eyes fixed on the real one a few feet away. It’s blank, cold, and solid. Everything I’m trying to be. One arm props beneath my head, the other clenches the edge of the blanket as if it’s the only thing keeping me from unraveling, even with my back turned.
The pillow does nothing to block out his scent. Soap, leather, and something darker that threads through the air and sinks into my skin. A heat that isn’t fire but memory. I tell myself I’m imagining the way his body heat creeps across the mattress. The way it wraps around me as though a tide I’m too weak to fight.
He offered to sleep on the floor or the couch downstairs, but I’d shrugged it off. Said I was fine. Big girl, I told him.
I don’t know who I thought I was fooling.
He smirked when I dropped the pillow down. That slow, crooked one that makes me want to punch him and kiss him inthe same breath. It crawled beneath my skin and rooted there, smug and sure. I’ve been stiff ever since, as if holding perfectly still might just let me vanish into the drywall. My shoulders haven’t unclenched once. My body is all knots and fire, braced and brittle.
My breath shudders out, too shallow. Every time I shift, my body reminds me it’s a battlefield.
Every inch of me aches. A dull, relentless throb in muscles I didn’t even know existed. My throat feels scraped raw, as if I spent the night screaming into a void, and my wrists still carry the ghost of things I don’t want to remember. The sting. The pressure. The betrayal. But it’s my chest that hurts the worst. Hollowed out. As though someone scooped out the insides and left the shell behind.
Because you’re one of us. Whether you like it or not.
Those words loop through my mind on repeat. I can’t tell if Malachi meant them as comfort or warning. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe I’m the one who’s both.
I don’t know what I believe anymore.
My fingers curl unconsciously against the pillow. A faint, steady rhythm taps out beneath my thumb; a silent beat only I can hear. Not quite a song. Just a way to stay anchored. Just enough to say I’m still here.
I feel his gaze long before I hear him move. He’s quiet, still, but I know he’s awake. Watching me. Wondering if I’m asleep.
I’m not. I haven’t drifted off for even a second. My mind’s been busy unraveling the last twenty-four hours. Every brutal, blurry second of it. Like film unraveling from a reel. Torn images. Flashbulbs of violence. Breathless, soundless, aching.
My dad sold me. Actually tried to sell me. It should’ve broken me. Hell, maybe it did.
But what wrecked me worse, what really carved something out of me, was how Malachi showed up when everything elsefell away. He carried me upstairs. Laid out clothes. Called Nash. Held me without asking for anything in return.
He chose me.
