I nodded, but it didn’t feel true.
Bo opened his door and started unloading the food, calling the other guys over. I sat for a minute longer, then peeled my hands out of my sleeves. The tremors were still there, but I focused on the marks that mattered: the bracelet, warm from my skin; the faint outline of Quiad’s name under the leather. I pressed my thumb to it, just to feel something solid.
After a while, I climbed out. The air was cold and sharp, and my lungs burned with every inhale. Bo handed out sandwiches and steered the crew back toward the house, then doubled back to me.
“You wanna go inside?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and followed him up the dirt path, boots squelching in the spring mud.
The new house was almost a house. The windows were in, the porch was roughed out, and you could stand inside and actually believe it would keep you dry in a storm. Bo propped the door open with a chunk of two-by-four and let me go first.
I walked the perimeter, touching the walls, tracing the lines where the cabinets would go, the marks on the floor where I’d mapped out the reading nook. It helped. Each thing I touched reminded me that I had a place, that there were people who wanted me here.
But I couldn’t shake the fear. It nipped at my heels, whispered that it was only a matter of time before someone came and called me out for being an imposter.
I made it to the back corner, where the kitchen window looked out over the bend in the creek. The sun caught in the glass and lit up the dust motes, turning the whole room into a snow globe.
I thought about calling Quiad. He’d know what to do. Or at least, he’d make it okay that I didn’t know.
I heard footsteps behind me. Bo stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching.
“You want me to tell Quiad?” he asked, quietly.
I almost said no, but then I nodded.
“Okay,” he said, like it was nothing. “I’ll get him.”
He left, letting the screen door slam. The house was quiet, except for the creak of the frame and the sound of the river outside.
I looked down at my hands. They were still shaking, but the marks on my wrist steadied me. I traced the letters, memorizing the feel of each one. Mine. I belonged here. I wasn’t going back, not for anyone.
When Quiad finally found me, I’d tell him that. I’d tell him everything. But for now, I waited, letting the fear burn off slow and steady, until all that was left was resolve.
She could show up a hundred more times, and I’d still choose this.
Every time.
Chapter Eight
~ Quiad ~
The day started like any other: hands numb from an hour of planing oak, the air in the shop sweet with sap and hot glue, my brain set to the clockwork rhythm of work and nothing else. Sunlight fell in ragged stripes across the floor, and I lost myself in it, squaring up the boards for the kitchen cabinets Levi’d designed.
The plans were propped against the window, edge curling from the damp, pencil marks everywhere. He’d doodled a sleeping cat in the corner, fangs and all, and every time I saw it I grinned like a dumbass.
I’d just slotted the last board in the vise when the back door crashed open. Bodean tumbled in, all limbs and panic, boots throwing mud and grit halfway to the band saw. He didn’t stop at the threshold—just barreled in, tripped over the power cord, and landed against my workbench with a thud loud enough to shake the dowels off the shelf.
“Jesus, Bo,” I barked, but he was already gasping, eyes wild, the words tripping out on each other.
“Quiad—Levi—build site—he’s—” He stopped, bent double, and sucked air. “He’s unraveling, man.”
The world stopped. Not just slowed—full dead halt, every cell in my body loading that word and refusing to do anything else with it.
“What happened?” I snapped. My voice came out a lot rougher than I meant, and I could see it hit him, but he didn’t flinch.
“Something in town, I don’t know,” Bo said, and he looked scared, which wasn’t like him. “He was fine at breakfast, but when we got back from the lunch run, he was—” He waved ahand, helpless. “Fucking white as a ghost. Like someone gutted him with a look.”
My hands clenched on the edge of the bench, knuckles blanched to bone. I barely registered Knox’s shadow in the open doorway or the way sawdust hung in the air like smoke from a bomb.
