“Who?” I said. “Who’d he see?”
Bo’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. “Dunno,” he finally spat. “Some woman. Thought it was his mom, maybe. He hasn’t said shit, just went all silent and weird.”
My vision tunneled. Every inch of the shop—the planes and clamps and perfectly organized rows of screws—became background noise. All I could see was the ghost of Levi, alone and hurting, and the monster waiting to swallow him.
I was gone before Bo finished talking. I didn’t even feel my bad leg until it seized up halfway to the door, but I ran anyway, the pain shooting up my thigh like shrapnel. The front of my shirt caught on a nail, ripping a button clean off, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was getting to him, faster than whatever the hell it was that had crawled out of his past.
Knox fell in beside me, boots eating the distance in double strides. He didn’t ask questions, just clocked my face and matched my speed. Bo lagged behind, his longer legs more for show than go, but his voice carried over the wind: “He’s in the house, Quiad! The new build!”
The path was a quarter mile of rutted mud and treacherous drop-offs, but I tore through it, lungs burning, world shrunk to a single point at the far end of the road. The unfinished house came into view, windows gaping and the porch just a skeleton of beams, the scent of wet lumber hanging heavy. I cleared the last turn and crashed up the steps, boots slipping, vision swimming.
Inside, a dozen men were eating lunch on buckets and upturned paint cans. I scanned the room, scanning faces, notfinding the one I needed until Bo, panting, pointed down the hall.
I yelled Levi’s name—voice splitting the air like a hatchet—and tore through the half-hung doors, my heart hammering so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. I found him wedged into the far corner of the main room, right where his future window seat would go, knees hugged to his chest, head down.
For a second, I couldn’t move. The dread in my gut twisted so hard I almost puked. Then I was there, down on my knees despite the bone-on-bone pain, and I reached for him, voice barely above a whisper. “Sunshine?”
He looked up, eyes rimmed red, face white as primer. Then, before I could even process it, he was in my arms, arms locked around my neck and shaking so bad it was like he’d never be able to stop. He buried his face against my shoulder and sobbed once, the sound raw and ugly and full of all the fear I’d tried to spare him.
I held him, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other gripping his wrist so tight I probably left marks over the tattoo. I didn’t care. All I cared about was this: he was here, not gone, not taken, and whatever it was, it hadn’t beat him yet.
I rocked him, slow and steady, until the shaking eased and he could breathe again.
The rest of the world—the crew, the house, even Knox and Bo in the hall—fell away. All that was left was the two of us, and the promise I’d made to keep him safe, no matter what ghosts came for him.
When I finally got my breath back, I whispered, “Nobody’s taking you, Levi. Nobody.”
And this time, I meant it more than anything I’d ever built.
Knox and Bo crashed into the room two heartbeats later, boots scraping raw plywood, the air behind them still humming with the stink of cheap coffee and men’s sweat.
Knox took one look at Levi folded into my arms and stopped cold, the lines around his mouth tightening. Bo hovered in the doorway, eyes huge, caught somewhere between guilt and wanting to fix it.
I didn’t say a word. Didn’t have to—the look on my face did the work for me. Knox’s gaze met mine and held for a beat. He nodded, then jerked his head at Bo, who started to say something but caught himself and backed out, soft as he could for a guy built like a fencepost. Knox shot me a look that said call if you need, then closed the door behind him with a finality that cut off the world.
Silence.
Levi still shook, tiny aftershocks running up his spine, his fists clutching at the back of my shirt like I might disappear if he let go. I pressed my face to his hair—damp with sweat, smelling of sawdust and something like lemon, maybe from the breakfast rolls Ma made. My hand skimmed the curve of his back, slow circles, thumb tracing up and down until the shaking started to slow.
I wanted to ask what happened, wanted to throttle every name from his past until I knew who to destroy. But I waited until his breath came even, slow and shuddery.
“You wanna tell me?” I said, and tried to make it gentle.
He hesitated, then nodded against my chest, his hair catching on the rough stubble of my jaw. When he spoke, his voice sounded like it’d been run over by a truck.
“In town—at the diner—she was just… there. Like a glitch. She had the same hair, same way of standing, even the stupid fucking sunglasses.” His laugh was a jagged thing, sharp and desperate. “I thought maybe I was hallucinating. But she looked at me, Quiad. She saw me. And for a second, I thought she might actually cross the street and—” He cut off, shivering again. “Ithought she’d come to take me back. Like it was just waiting, all this time, for her to remember I existed.”
He pushed back from me, not far, just enough to let the light hit his face. His eyes were red, but he stared through me, unfocused.
“I know it’s stupid. I’m an adult. She can’t just walk into my life and—” He broke off, voice cracking. “But it felt like she could. Like if she snapped her fingers, I’d go right back to being the spare part nobody wanted. Not even you’d be able to stop it.”
I felt something cold and mean settle behind my ribs. I gripped his wrists, gently but firm, pulling his hands down until I could see the bruised skin where he’d been rubbing at the tattoo. He didn’t fight me.
“I don’t care who she is,” I said, every word a nail in the floorboards. “She’s not taking you from me. Not now. Not ever.”
He tried to laugh, but it came out broken. “You can’t promise that, Quiad.”
I cupped his face in both hands, thumbs sweeping the streaks of wet from his cheeks. He looked so fucking young, and all I wanted was to build a fortress around him and never let anything get through.
