“Easy,” Wyatt said. His voice was rough, low, scraped raw at the edges. “Hey. Look at me.”
It took a moment before I realized he was talking to me.
My hands were shaking. I didn’t even notice until I saw the tremors catching in the passing glow of the porch light. My teeth began to chatter. Not loud. Not frantic. Just enough that the bones in my jaw clicked.
Wyatt saw it instantly. His whole body shifted toward me.
“Hey,” he murmured, voice dropping into something gentle. “You’re safe. You hear me.”
I nodded because speaking felt impossible.
My tongue was thick. My throat refused to open.
He reached in, helping me down from the truck like I was made of blown glass about to shatter. One hand braced at my elbow. One warm palm steady at the curve of my back. His touch made my knees react, not with fear, but with something like collapsing relief.
I hated that I needed him.
I held on anyway.
The house rose ahead of us with every step. Too bright. Too open. Too safe. My home. Mine. Yet the sight of it made my throat clench in a way I didn’t understand.
The porch light spilled in a golden pool across the boards.
And then Dani burst out of the doorway.
She didn’t shout my name. She didn’t waste time asking questions. She ran straight at me with a sound caught between a sob and an exhale.
She crashed into me with enough force to rock me back.
I let myself fold into her. My fists clutched at her shirt like it was a rope, and I was sliding off a cliff. She smelled like lavender soap and fear and the stale coffee she always forgot in the microwave.
“You’re here,” she kept whispering. Her breath shook against my ear. “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here.”
“I’m here,” I whispered back. The words cracked. They scraped out of my chest like something breaking loose.
Wyatt stepped back without being asked. I felt it more than saw it, the way his body withdrew to give us space. It hit me somewhere deep that he knew when to move and when not to.
Dani pulled back just far enough to grab my face in her hands. Her palms were warm. Her thumbs brushed under my eyes as if she was checking for bruises.
“Did he hurt you?” she asked, voice sharp as a blade.
“No.” The word flew out fast. Too fast. “No. He didn’t.”
Her jaw clenched. Her eyes flashed. “I don’t care. I’m still going to key his face.”
A laugh tried to escape. It came out as a shuddering breath that sounded like a sob.
She kept her hand wrapped around my wrist as she pulled me inside, holding me like she thought the wind might steal me again. The house felt wrong. Familiar, but shifted. Or maybe I was the one who shifted. Maybe something inside me had been rearranged without permission.
Wyatt came after us. He closed the door softly and controlled.
The click of the latch echoed inside my ribs.
Final.
Safe.
Contained.
