For the first time in years, I don’t feel like I’m dying here.
I feel like I’m protecting someone worth living for.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ava
Violet bounds down the porch steps with a knit hat only halfway on her head and a backpack bouncing like a happy golden retriever. She spins at the bottom of the path, boots skidding on packed snow.
“Hot chocolate emergency,” she announces. “We’re down to one packet, and I refuse to live that life.”
“You don’t have time for that,” I warn.
She’s already jogging backward, grin bright and unrepentant. “Quick! Promise!”
I cross my arms. “Straight there and straight back. No detours.”
She flashes a thumbs-up that communicates very clearly:Yes, Mom, I heard you and will probably make one detour but with wholesome intentions.
She pivots and disappears up the snowy path, ponytail swinging like trouble.
The cabin behind me is quiet again—painfully quiet. Our home had never felt this hollow before Jax’s place became… something else. I shake the thought off fast, refusing to name what “something else” might be.
I tug my coat tighter. “Clinic. Just checking in,” I say aloud, as if anchoring myself to normal routines.
My car groans when I start it, the cold biting through the engine like teeth. Fine snowflakes swirl in lazy spirals at first—deceptively gentle—the storm they promised still supposedly hours away.
Inside the clinic, warmth hums through the vents. Fluorescent lights buzz. Paper charts shuffle. The world is still calm.
Until the front door bangs open hard enough to rattle glass.
A man stands in the entryway, catching his breath—snow dusting his shoulders, melting into dark patches on his jacket. He forces a polite smile, the kind that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Sorry,” he says, shaking off the cold. “Weather came in faster than expected. Thought I should get checked out—altitude’s messing with me.”
Ellie ushers him to an exam room, cheerful as always. I follow with a chart, heartbeat suddenly too loud in my ears.
He scans the clinic as he moves—eyes sweeping corners, exits, people—the predatory curiosity disguised as interest.
“That avalanche a couple weeks back…” he begins once we’re alone, leaning back like we’re just making conversation. “Word is someone barely made it out.”
I freeze.
“Small town like this,” he continues lightly, eyes razor-sharp, “you’d expect everyone to know who the survivor is.”
I keep my voice controlled. “We treat a lot of emergencies up here.”
“Sure,” he says, lips curling. “But not all emergencies come with a name the world recognizes.”
A tremor shoots through my pulse.
He shifts on the exam table, settling in like he plans to make himself comfortable. Too comfortable.
“So, you must know him,” he says, tone airy. “Jackson Hale?”
I blink once. Slowly. “Who?”
He studies my face like he’s reading a headline off it. “You haven’t heard the name? Billionaire tech mogul? Presumed dead? It was all over the news.”
