Something like hope burns beneath my rib cage as I stalk down the familiar trail, remembering the thousand times I walked it as a teenager. Almost always with Sev and Eli on either side of me.
It's a dangerous feeling—hope. It makes you soft. Makes you believe things might actually work out.
I should know better by now.
Even in the dark, I see the shape of the Ashford house through the sparse fall trees after a minute. The tall, weathered brick chimneys. The arch of the grand front face of the house.
I wish I were reentering the house I had come to know as my home, underanyother circumstances, with my brothers beside me.
How many times did I imagine coming back here with them—with the legacy Ambrose stole from us—to return it to its rightful place with Julian?
Countless times.
I even imagined bringing Aurora here someday. Showing her where we became men. Where Florence taught me that family isn't about blood but aboutchoice.
I wish Florence were here to meet her. To see how she raised three boys into men capable of loving someone the way she and Julian loved each other.
But Florence is gone.
Aurora might be, too.
And I don't know how to survive losing both of them.
I flinch, squeezing the little piece of confetti tightly in my fist.
We're going to get her back.
We are.
Because I could never fucking live with myself if we don't.
This was all my idea.Myfucking plan.
Eli and Sev haven't said as much, but I know they blame me, too.
Something brushes against my senses like a phantom brush of fingertips down my spine, and I stop, turning to squint into the trees.
Slowly, I pull my weapon from its holster and listen.
What the fuck is that?
It's not a sound.
It's like…
Way down the path, I hear Ellie bark, and then she comes racing down like a bat out of hell.
What the fuck?
My skin prickles and I'm analyzing every fucking shadow. Every sound.
Where is the threat?
Ellie skids to a stop on her approach, her jaws closing on the hem of my jacket and pulling forcefully.
"Ellie," I chastise. "Ellie, go back!"
Where is the?—
