She vanished into the kitchen, the echo of her authority lingering in the air like old gunpowder.
I exhaled, slow and steady, then glanced at Newt. He was staring at me with something like horror, or awe, or maybe both.
“You didn’t have to—” he started.
I cut him off. “Yeah, I did.”
He blinked, mouth opening, then closing. He looked smaller now, not from fear, but from the realization that there was no way out. He’d been claimed, marked, and all it had taken was four words.
I stepped in, close enough to crowd his space. He didn’t move away. If anything, he tilted up, met my gaze head-on. “You get it now?” I said, low.
He swallowed, the line of his throat working hard. “Yeah,” he said. “I get it.”
I wanted to touch him, but I held back. There’d be time for that. First, I needed to make sure he was all the way mine.
“You hungry?” I asked, voice softer now.
He nodded.
I jerked my chin toward the kitchen. “Go on. Ma won’t bite.”
He shuffled off, shoulders hunched, but I caught the glint of something bright in his eyes as he passed.
When the house settled into silence again, I allowed myself a thin smile.
I’d made my move.
Tomorrow, I’d make sure he never forgot it.
Chapter Four
~ Knox ~
The next morning I woke to the sound of someone splitting wood outside my window. I knew from the rhythm—two hard strikes, a grunt, and a third to finish the job—that it was Ransom, and that he was either making a point or burning off a hangover.
Maybe both.
I lay there for a minute, cataloguing the sounds. The house was already alive, floorboards groaning under the weight of breakfast prep, pots clattering, radio dialed to a station that played only bluegrass and funeral dirges.
I gave it five minutes, then pulled on a shirt and pants and then made my way down the hall. The air was thick with cinnamon and coffee, plus the undertone of burnt sugar that said someone was about to fuck up a tray of sticky buns.
I found Newt in the mudroom, curled into a corner and trying to make himself invisible. He’d gone back to his own clothes—washed and dried and folded with military precision—but he still wore my hoodie under his windbreaker.
It made him look younger, like the kind of kid you saw standing by the vending machines at a truck stop, counting change for a soda.
He saw me and straightened, color blooming under the bruise on his cheek. “Hey,” he said, voice scratchy from sleep.
“Hey,” I replied. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, “You sleep alright?”
He nodded, then shook his head. “Your brother snores.”
“He does,” I said. “You get used to it. Or you die.”
He laughed, then clamped a hand over his mouth. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t built for morning conversations.
We stood there, the silence drawing out like a rubber band. I noticed the way he kept picking at the seam of the sleeve, twisting the fabric between his fingers.
