Gideon sat at his desk surrounded by invoices and parts catalogs, reading glasses perched on his nose, silver hair tied back like he was any other small-town mechanic trying to keep a business alive.
If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t see it. The edges. The way the air felt different around him. Like the room had rules.
“Michael,” he said without looking up. “Close the door.”
My stomach tightened.
I did it, and the garage noise dulled to a distant hum. The office instantly felt smaller. Like the walls leaned in.
“Supplies are on the shelf behind you,” he said. “But that’s not why you’re here.”
“I came to pick up electrical supplies,” I said, because if I didn’t cling to something normal, I was going to unravel on the spot.
Gideon finally looked up.
He didn’t blink much. It was one of the things that made him hard to read. Like he didn’t waste movement on anything that didn’t matter.
He removed his glasses slowly, folded them, set them down with care that felt deliberate.
“Daniel told me what happened at the clearing.”
Of course he did.
I swallowed. “He shouldn’t have.”
Gideon’s mouth tightened. “He was worried.”
“I’m alive,” I said, too sharp.
“Barely,” Gideon replied, and there was no cruelty in it. Just blunt truth. “The fact that you walked out of there at all is impressive.”
“I had help.”
Gideon’s gaze flicked over me, sharp and still. “You had Daniel showing up at exactly the right moment. Which, knowing him, wasn’t coincidence.”
I hated how my throat tightened at that. Hated the way my chest ached when someone said Daniel’s name like it mattered.
Gideon leaned back in his chair, watching me the way people watched storms on the horizon.
“But that’s not what’s eating at you,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
It was the worst kind of knowing.
I should’ve grabbed the supplies and left. Should’ve walked out before my mouth betrayed me.
Instead I heard myself say, very quietly, “I went there to talk to Anna.”
Gideon didn’t react like a man hearing something strange.
He reacted like a man hearing something inevitable.
“Mm,” he said, nodding once. “Makes sense. That clearing holds memory. Weight. It’s a thin place.”
“Thin,” I repeated, because my brain snagged on the word.
“Between here,” he said, “and elsewhere.”
