I regain my composure and say, coolly, “We were doing our jobs.”
“Sure,” Torres says. “And Axel wasn’t staring at you like a kicked puppy the entire time.”
My stomach drops.
I expect Axel to deny it. Bark back. Make a joke. Something.
Instead, his silence is deafening.
He doesn’t deny a damn thing.
And that—more than anything—makes my pulse stutter.
I swallow hard and turn away before anyone can see the cracks forming in the careful armor I built for myself.
I can pretend all I want. I can bury the history, the feelings, the wildfire of memories clawing up my spine.
But I’m not stupid.
Axel still feels everything.
And I… feel too much.
Far too much.
Chapter Four
Savannah
Cold air knifes through the valley as I turn off the engine.
The world is quiet here. Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that presses against your ribs and threatens to wake every memory you spent ten years burying. I’ve been avoiding this place for the week since I’ve been back, but there’s no more avoiding it now. I have to confront the pain of my past head on.
I step out of the truck and crunch into the snow, boots sinking just deep enough to make each step feel heavy. Ghostlike fog curls from my breath. A thin layer of frost coats the grass, the remnants of last night’s snowfall glittering under a pale sun.
And there it is.
The place I once called home.
Or what’s left of it.
A stone foundation. A few charred beams half-swallowed by the earth. The faint imprint of rooms that don’t exist anymore. It all looks smaller now—like loss has a way of shrinking things in your mind until you come back and realize it was never the house that collapsed.
Just you.
I wrap my arms around myself, partly for warmth, partly to hold the pieces inside me that never quite settled right again.
I should’ve prepared for this.
I thought I had.
Turns out some wounds stay raw no matter how many years pass.
Wind whistles low through the broken remains. For a moment I swear I hear my father’s laugh. My mother humming in the kitchen. Axel telling me not to climb the damn oak tree barefoot.
A painful smile touches my lips.
