And Jax opens the door.
Cold air rushes in, biting at our ankles. Our home is waiting. Our routine is waiting. Our normal is waiting.
But leaving feels an awful lot like breaking something that was finally trying to heal.
I take a slow breath, heart heavy with all the words unspoken.
“We’ll see you soon,” I manage.
Jax nods—one tight, painful movement—and holds the door while we step into the snow.
It crunches beneath our boots. Violet sniffles. The wind picks up.
When I glance back, he’s still standing there in the doorway… watching like a man afraid that if he looks away, we’ll vanish back into his nightmares.
And I walk away thinking the same thing I’ve thought every morning since that storm:
Leaving isn’t the same as wanting to go.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jax
The cabin is too quiet without them. Not peaceful-quiet. Not restful-quiet.
The kind that reminds me every few seconds that two voices are missing. Their laughter. Their footsteps. The scrape of Violet’s pencil against the kitchen table. The soft humming Ava does without realizing—always off-key, always comforting.
Silence used to be my armor. Now it’s a hollow echo where life once rattled around, uninvited but welcome.
The day outside is gray-blue, the sky heavy with storm-feeling. There’s a particular tension the mountain gets before snow comes—like it’s inhaling, waiting to exhale white.
I walk a lap around the living room—counting the floorboards for no reason—and end up back at the table because there’s nowhere else to go. Nowhere that doesn’t feel scraped clean of what they brought into this place.
The laptop’s screen reflects a version of me I don’t quite recognize. Beard grown in thicker than I used to allow. Hair curling because I haven’t cared enough to cut it. Eyes darker than they were even months ago. I look like someone who’s lived alone on a mountain so long the mirror stopped mattering.
Maybe that’s exactly what I am.
I click the tab that has been open for weeks, maybe months, maybe a lifetime.
Silver Ridge Community Clinic — Donation Portal
I’ve funneled money before. Quietly. Indirectly. Enough to keep them afloat when equipment went down or bills piled too highfor a town this small. But what they need now isn’t just a lifeline—it’s a future.
Without funding, they’ll have to close. The nearest hospital is two hours away. That’s death for someone like Violet when minutes matter.
I type a figure. Then add a zero. Then another.
It climbs to a number that once felt like pocket change, and now feels like exposing my jugular. Enough to keep the clinic running for years. Enough to cover equipment, staffing, medicine, emergency funds. Enough to make every storm a little less dangerous.
Enough to erase the fear in Ava’s voice when she whispers that ‘she’ll find a way, she always does’.
I stare at the digits until they blur. Clicking submit isn’t the hard part. Hiding where it comes from—that’s what could ruin everything.
Because if the wrong person sees that number, if a single database pings with a flagged name…
Jackson Hale resurrects. The grave cracks open. Silver Ridge becomes a spectacle.
Ava and Violet get dragged into a circus of cameras and headlines. People knocking at their door, demanding interviews. Strangers hungry for tragedy, for gossip, for blood in the snow.
