“Colin, I’m fucking tired of this. You’ve got about three seconds,” I said, moving my hand toward my belt, “to make the smartest decision of your remaining life. Step off that porch with your hands where I can see them.”
He glanced at Holt, seeing the barrel of the shotgun Holt was now leveling, then back at me. A flicker of real, sharpfear finally pierced through his arrogance. “You gonna shoot me in cold blood? In front of her?”
“Yep,” I said, my voice as cold as the frost on the ground. “Then I’m going to take her home. I'm going to take her back to the people who actually love her.”
Tessa swallowed hard, her eyes darting between us. “Wyatt. Please.”
I gave her a small nod.
Colin saw the shift in the air. He saw the way the shadows were closing in. In a desperate, pathetic bid for control, he stepped closer to Tessa, his hand reaching out to brush her arm, a claim, a final act of possession.
She flinched as if he’d branded her with a hot iron.
That was the end of my patience.
I moved. I was across the clearing before he could draw a breath. Holt grabbed him, a blur of motion, slamming him against the side of the cabin with enough force to make the old wood scream. I reached Tessa, catching her as her knees finally gave out. I pulled her against my chest, wrapping my arms around her until she was shielded from the sight of him.
She made a sound halfway between a sob and a gasp, a primal release of air, and clutched at my jacket with both hands. She held on so tight I could feel her knuckles grinding against my ribs. She was terrified that if she let go, the world would dissolve back into that orange-lit room.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured into her hair, the scent of her finally drowning out the rot of the cabin. “I’ve got you, Tess. You’re safe. I promise.”
Colin was shouting something incoherent as Holt wrestled him to the ground. Colin’s voice was high and reedy now, the mask of the sophisticated predator completely shattered, leaving behind nothing but a small, mean man.
Tessa’s breath came in sharp, uneven pulls, her whole body vibrating with a tremor that felt like it might shake her bonesapart. All the fight, all the adrenaline that kept her upright for hours, was draining out of her, leaving her heavy in my arms.
“You came,” she whispered against my chest.
“Always. Every time. I told you I would.”
Sirens began to wail faintly in the distance, a low moan that grew into a scream as they tore through the woods, the blue and red lights beginning to strobe against the trees like a fever dream. The law was coming to clean up the mess, but the damage was already done.
Colin laughed, a wild, broken sound from the dirt where Holt had him pinned. “You think this is over, Wyatt? You think you can just take her and fix her? I’m in her head, I’m the thing she sees when she closes her eyes. She can't outrun me!”
I held Tessa tighter, resting my chin against the top of her head, shutting out his voice. I looked at the cabin—the sagging roof, the diseased light, the wound in the land—and I knew he was right about one thing. It wouldn't be easy. She was safe now, but the recovery would take a lifetime.
Thirty-Six
Tessa
Ididn’t remember the drive. My brain folded in on itself the second Wyatt’s hands closed around me outside that cabin, and the world finally stopped tilting. Everything after that blurred like someone dragged water across wet ink.
But I remembered Wyatt’s hand on my knee. Heavy. Warm. Steady. An anchor in a world that wouldn’t stop spinning.
Every bump in the road vibrated through me. Every breath he took seemed to move straight through my skin. I didn’t cling to him, but some part of me leaned toward that heat like it was the only thing keeping me upright. My body reacted before my head caught up, curling toward the place his hand rested.
Holt’s voice crackled through the radio in low, broken pieces. He sounded controlled, but too controlled. Shaken under the surface. Like one wrong syllable would shatter something he didn’t have the strength to pick up tonight.
Headlights carved tunnels through the dark prairie. They flicked across the windows and caught my reflection again and again. My eyes didn’t look like mine. They were too wide, toobright, rimmed with the kind of fear that didn’t fade just because the danger moved thirty miles behind you.
My breath kept sticking in my throat.
My chest felt hollow and tight at the same time.
The truck slowed. I felt the shift before I heard it. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. Holt said something through the radio. Wyatt answered, but the words blurred before my brain could make sense of them.
A door opened.
Cold air rushed in.
