The loft above Petals and Pines felt different the moment I opened the door. Not just abandoned, dusty, or stale. It felt haunted. Not by ghosts but bymemories.By every whisper I’d pretended not to hear when I first arrived in Val-Du-Lys. By every glance that slid over me like I was a loaded weapon sitting in the middle of town.
Bellerose.
That name alone had been enough to turn kind people quiet. Mothers pulling their kids closer. Business owners stiffening behind their counters. Old men muttering “trouble” under their breath. Teenagers whispering “drug lord’s daughter.” People who refused to serve me at the diner. People who crossed the street when I passed. People who asked Sandy why she was “risking herself” by giving me this loft. I’d forgotten how heavy all that felt until right now. The loft had been my refuge, but also my punishment.
The place I cried alone. The place where I wondered if I should leave town again. I had faced so many hurdles when I returned. I knew I would, but no other place felt like home and I was tired of running. I looked out on the balcony, the place where I learned to drink tea quietly.
The place where I slept with pepper spray under my pillow because half the town assumed I had cartel connections. I stepped inside and flicked on the lamp, the yellow glow revealing exactly what I left behind: a few clothes folded on the sofa, a sweater draped over a chair, a grocery bag with expired yogurt, a candle that burned out on its own.
Then my gaze caught on the table. And my breath broke. A withered thistle sat in a small glass jar, petals curled inward, stem pale and brittle. Next to it lay a folded recipe card in Mom’s looping handwriting. The lemon tart recipe. The lastthing she’d ever baked for me. I crossed the room slowly, knees weak. The smell of old lemons and dried flowers clung faintly to the air, as if the memory of her refused to leave, even when I did. Mom used to tell me thistles were misunderstood spiky, sharp, unwelcome but stronger than the flowers people actually admired.
“Just like you,” she’d whisper when she tucked one behind my ear.
“My little thistle. Beautiful and tougher than anyone knows.”Little thistle.
The nickname cracked something open in my chest. Mom knew we lived a life of danger and from a young age she tried to prepare me to be strong. What she didn’t prepare me for was losing her. I reached for the recipe card with trembling fingers. The ink looked faded; the edges soft from age. Mom’s voice drifted through me like a memory wrapped in smoke. She died because she got in the wrong car. Because someone meant to kill Marcel and hit her instead. Because of the life he dragged her into. The life he trained me for.
The loft felt colder suddenly. As if the shadows remembered Marcel Bellerose poisoned this town long before I stepped back into it. That everything bad that happened from drugs to disappearances to smuggling rumors was tied to my last name.
And now I was here again. Bringing danger back to the doorstep. My throat tightened as I scanned the shelves above the kitchenette. There. Exactly where I’d hidden it the night Eric insisted I stay at the Thorne house for safety. My laptop.
The one my dad gave me when I was fourteen. The one Olivier watched me use. The one Nico once stole to impress my father, and the one I used to turn my father in. It felt like picking up a piece of my past and pressing it to my throat. I dragged the step stool over, climbed up, and pulled the laptop down carefully. Dust coated the surface. Stickers peeled from the lidof bands I used to love, cities I wanted to visit, a tiny racing fox Olivier gave me once. That sticker burned to look at.
I placed the laptop on the table beside the lemon tart recipe and the withered thistle. It looked wrong together. My mother’s love. My father’s legacy. The danger I created that was following me now. I opened the laptop. The familiar hum filled the room. The machine flickered, glitched, then lit up like it had been waiting for me.
And then… A ping.
Loud.
Sharp.
Wrong.
A message box flashed open automatically.
SABLEFOX:You came back. Little Thistle always returns to the places she shouldn’t.
My pulse exploded.
No one in Val-Du-Lys had called me that. No one would know to. The town barely tolerated me. Only Mom used that name or people who had access to her journals. People like my father and brother. People like the men they trained. My fingers hovered over the keys.
MISTRALKID:How did you get this handle?
Three dots pulsed.
SABLEFOX:You left windows open. I walked in. This network remembers you, even if Val-Du-Lys doesn’t want to.
A shiver crawled up my spine. Val-Du-Lys didn’t forget me. They feared me. Feared the Bellerose blood in my veins. Feared the darkness that Marcel dragged into town.
MISTRALKID:What do you want?
SABLEFOX:More interesting question, what do YOU want, Harmony Bellerose?
A quiet life? Safety? A fresh start with people who’d burn you alive if they knew the truth?
My breath caught.
They knew. They knew the town hated me, knew about the whispers, the fear.
