“I’m not a criminal,” he muttered.
“You’re not being treated like one,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “You’re being protected.”
“By strangers who drive me back and forth to school.”
“By professionals who make sure you come home,” I shot back, then softened when I saw the tension in his shoulders. “You know this isn’t a punishment.”
He didn’t answer right away. He just stared at the floor, jaw clenched, his fear hidden behind irritation. “I hate this,” he finally said.
“So do I,” I admitted. “But I hate the alternative more.”
The knock at the door made both of us jump, but I already knew who it was.
Caleb stood on my porch, hat in his hand, the morning sun catching in his hair. He looked too steady for the chaos we were living in, too grounded for the fear that followed us everywhere. And yet, he had become the one constant in all it.
“Morning,” he said.
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Do you ever sleep?”
A faint smile passed over his lips. “Sometimes. Not when your street’s quiet.”
That earned a reluctant snort.
Caleb turned to me. “He’s got an escort today. Same route. Same drop-off.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
He glanced at Lucas. “I’ll see you after school.”
Lucas hesitated, then nodded once.
I watched them walk out together, my brother slouching beside a man who carried himself with calm authority, and something inside my chest eased. At least we weren’t handling this alone.
Once Lucas was secured in the SUV with his own bodyguard, Caleb drove me to work again.
I didn’t argue.
The town rolled past the windshield in slow, familiar stretches… the bakery on Main with the pink awning… the feed store on the corner… the diner that still advertised pie by the slice. They were all places I’d driven by a thousand times without thinking. Now every one of them felt exposed.
I rested my hands in my lap and tried to keep them from shaking.
“You okay?” Caleb asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t sleep anymore. I check the locks three times before bed. I keep imagining someone standing in the yard. I keep thinking I hear a car outside.”
He glanced at me, his expression serious but gentle. “That’s fear.”
“That’s love,” I said. “It’s what fear feels like when you love someone more than yourself.”
He nodded. “You’re not weak because of it.”
“I feel weak.”
“You’re carrying more than most people ever have to.”
I didn’t expect him to understand, but the kindness in his voice nearly undid me. There was something more to my strong and silent neighbor than he let on. Maybe one of these days, after Lucas and I were safe and completely out of danger, I’d ask him about his past. Right now, surviving one day at a time was all I could manage.
At the hospital, I moved through my shift in a fog. I smiled at patients. I scheduled appointments. I answered phones. But my thoughts stayed locked on Lucas and the men who thought they could use him and the quiet cowboy across the street who refused to let them.
