“I can’t lose him, Pa,” I choked out. “I won’t survive it.”
Pa squeezed my shoulder, then let go. He stood, joints popping, and went to poke at the fire, sending a fresh shower of sparks up the chimney. “Then don’t,” he said, simple and final. “But remember—vengeance and protection aren’t always the same thing.”
He left the poker in the hearth, then turned, his shadow stretching long and dark across the rug. “I’ll tell the boys to stay close tomorrow,” he said. “You get some rest.”
I nodded, but he knew I wouldn’t sleep. He watched me a second longer, then headed for the door, boots silent on thewood. The house settled around me after he left, the only sound the slow crackle of burning logs.
I sat there all night, staring into the flames, planning. Every scenario, every contingency, every way to keep Levi safe. I pictured myself in a thousand iterations: a bodyguard, a shield, a weapon, a monster. I didn’t care what I became, as long as he was safe at the end of it.
The rage never left. But somewhere around four a.m., a brittle clarity set in. I could destroy them all, easy. But that wasn’t enough. I had to be smarter, meaner. I had to be a fortress, not a bomb.
When the sky lightened, I got up, poured myself a cup of the burnt coffee left in the pot, and walked the perimeter of the house. Knox and Harlow were already up, talking in low voices on the porch. Ransom lounged against the door, a fresh cigarette trailing smoke, eyes red but sharp.
“Everything quiet?” I asked.
Knox nodded. “Nothing out there but the river and some deer.”
I looked out at the world—at the woods, the fields, the blue haze of the mountains in the distance. Nothing moved. But I knew better. I knew the enemy was out there, biding time.
“I’ll take over,” I said.
Ransom shrugged, then handed me the rifle without a word. The wood was warm from his grip.
I settled on the top step, watching the sun claw its way up the sky. Today, I’d build Levi a fortress. Tomorrow, I’d make sure no one ever got close enough to hurt him again. If it meant becoming the monster I’d always feared lived inside me—so be it.
He was mine and I was never letting go.
Chapter Seventeen
~ Quiad ~
I woke with my heart firing like a nail gun, arms locked around empty air, the bed cold where it should have been warm.
For one paralyzed second, I was back in the nightmare: Levi gone, vanished between the ticks of a clock, every scream sucked out of my throat by the crushing dark.
It was always the same. Him slipping away, me powerless, the aftermath a churn of blood and loss. Some nights it was a car crash, the way it’d almost happened for real. Some nights it was those men in the alley, their faces a blur but their fists landing sharp, the sound of Levi's body breaking echoing through me long after I woke up.
Tonight it was nothing but that feeling—absence, loss—amplified to a frequency that drowned out everything else.
I wrenched myself upright, vision swimming, breath clawing in and out of my chest so loud it felt like an alarm. My hands went to the sheet, fisting it, then searching, frantic, across the battered mattress. I had to feel him—skin, bone, proof he hadn’t slipped out of existence while I slept.
There. On the far edge of the bed, back to me, spine drawn up in a wary question mark. He was real. He was here.
The relief cut my legs out, and I sagged forward, forehead pressed to his bare shoulder blade, just letting the heat of him bleed into me. I wrapped both arms around his waist and squeezed until the panic had to give way or shatter me for good.
Levi didn’t startle. He didn’t flinch. Just a small, sleepy noise, and then he rolled over, blue eyes blinking up at me in the half-dark, face a mess of fading bruise and stubborn calm.
He reached for me, fingers catching at the front of my t-shirt, and tugged me down until our noses almost touched. “Quiad?” he whispered, the sound sweet and raw with sleep.
I couldn’t answer. If I opened my mouth, the terror would come pouring out, and I’d never get the taste out again. I buried my face in his hair, breathing him in—shampoo, sweat, the clean ozone smell that always clung to him after a shower. I held there, anchored by the smell, the feel of his pulse fluttering under my lips.
His hands slid up my back, one palm settling on the scar at the base of my skull. He stroked it, gentle, like he knew exactly how the pieces fit and how easy it would be to knock them loose. The other hand went to my forearm, tracing lazy circles on the inside, the same place he always drew when he wanted to calm me down.
He didn’t ask what the dream was. He never did. He just held me, fingers drawing light patterns that reminded me I was real, that he was real, that the world was still there outside these walls.
I let myself breathe him in, slower each time, until the shakes went away.
“Same dream?” he said, voice softer than the moonlight leaking through the slats.
