Shadows.
No Kai.
But he’s here.
I feel it like static up my spine.
“You’re a fucking coward,” I breathe, fists trembling. “A ghost with teeth. A shadow that hides behind trees because you know if you came out—” My voice breaks again, rage and something darker colliding in my chest. “—I’d tell you everything I didn’t say four years ago.”
Silence.
He doesn’t step out.
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t move.
And the fact he doesn’t almost hurts worse.
I inhale shakily, every nerve in my body pulled tight.
“You want a war?” My voice is barely human. “You fucking got one.”
I turn and walk back toward the house, pulse hammering, fury burning through my blood, shoulders braced like I’m expecting the forest to reach out and grab me.
But it doesn’t.
I make it back to the edge of the yard.
I make it to the lawn.
I make it to the back door.
Only when I step inside do I let myself whisper it—quiet, breathless, furious: “Come out next time.”
Kai
She really thinks she can scream at a forest and I won’t hear her.
I’m less than twenty metres back, leaning against a tree with my arms crossed, hood up, breath slow and steady as I watch her stomp through the underbrush like a storm in bare feet.
The rage rolling off her practically crackles in the air.
Little sister is losing her mind.
And fuck me—she’s beautiful like this.
I bite back a laugh as she spins in a circle, chest heaving, hair wild, voice tearing through the trees:
“COME OUT, YOU FUCKING COWARD!”
Oh, sweetheart.
You have no fucking idea.
I tilt my head, watching her pace, watching her fists clench, watching every part of her burn with the heat I’ve been starving for.
“Christ,” I mutter under my breath, lips twitching. “Look at you.”
