Her breathing evens out for a moment. Then it stutters. Just once. And I feel it—right there in my chest—because that’s the moment she realises I’m not talking about duty when it comes to us.
“My sister’s name was Missy.”
My body goes still in the way it does when something vital is exposed. I don’t interrupt. I don’t fill the space. I don’t want to say anything that may have her second guess her decision to tell me about her sister. I let the silence stretch because this isn’t a moment that can survive being rushed.
“My older sister. Myonlysister.” Her breath hitches, reshapes itself into something that might pass for a laugh if you weren’t listening closely. “If you think I’m chaos, Missy would’ve driven you insane.”
My hand moves to her hair without permission from my brain, light and careful, fingers threading through slowly like I’m reminding her she’s here. That she’s not alone in this room. She doesn’t pull away. She leans into it just enough to tell me my touch is welcome.
She talks about the sky first. The colour of it. The way it wasn’t fully dark, like the day hadn’t finished making promises it couldn’t keep. She talks about how safe everything felt. How calm and quiet. And that they were already almost home.
Then the car. The sound of it behind them. Rumbling.
She talks in a faraway voice, as though she’s left the room and gone back in her memory.
Her voice doesn’t shake when she says Missy told her to run. She just states it as fact - as though that instruction has been replaying on a loop for years and it’s carved into her.
My chest tightens until my breathing goes shallow. I don’t hear this like a story. I see it—feel it—understand it as something unfinished. A moment that never closed. A wound that learned how to hide but never healed.
A child who survived by obeying. A woman who has paid for that obedience every day since.
“I left her,” Rowan whispers.
She sounds devastated. Sheisdevastated. Guilt is a lonely burden to bear.
The words sit between us, heavy and unmoving. I slide my arm around her and pull her in, firm this time, giving her my strength. I know what she means. She doesn’t mean she chose herself. She feels like she lived when she wasn’t supposed to.
She breaks then—not loudly or theatrically. They’re just quiet tears, slipping free like this is the only place her body has ever felt safe enough to come apart. I hold her closer, careful, like she’s something that shouldn’t be rushed or mishandled. I don’t offer justice. I don’t promise it will be okay.
I just stay.
And in the dark, listening to the worst truth she’s ever carried alone, something sharp and unmistakable settles in my chest.
This is why Rowan is fierce. This is why she looks straight at evil and refuses to look away when everyone else does. She doesn’t write to be heard. She writes to warn. To tell the world to do better, to be better—or answer for it.
Vigilantism.
She was never talking about Goliath.
She was talking about herself.
29
JUSTIN
Ihate that this is the happiest I’ve ever seen Rowan. Hate it because I know what came before it. Ten years of existing in a half-life. Ten years of carrying grief and fear like permanent organs. Ten years of learning how to endure instead of live. The fact thatthis—me, this room, this fragile pocket of safety—is what finally puts light in her eyes makes something ugly twist in my chest.
I want to be the one who makes her happy. I want to be the man who keeps her safe, who stands between her and the worst of the world, who becomes something steady she can lean into without always expecting pain. That part of me is honest. It’s instinctive.
But knowing she had to survive all of that alone first—knowing no one caught her when she fell—does something violent to my insides. I don’t have a name for it. Rage doesn’t quite cover it. Grief doesn’t either. It’s closer to guilt, even though I know that’s irrational. Like I’m late to something that mattered too much to miss.
She’s sitting there now, knees tucked beneath her, watching me with a look that’s far too intense for how calm she appears.Like she’s measuring me. There’s hunger in her gaze—not for food—but for closeness, for connection, for me.
The look says she could devour me again and be satisfied.
I clear my throat and slide the plate a little closer to her, forcing myself to focus on the movement instead of the way my hands want to touch her. The gesture is small. Practical. Necessary. If I don’t root myself to something ordinary, I’ll reach for her instead—and once I do, I’m not sure I’ll remember how to let go.
She takes the plate, but her eyes never leave my face. That smile lingers, soft and knowing, like she’s already clocked the internal war I’m losing.
