“No, I’m not,” I admit.
Her chest shakes with a quiet laugh.
We stay like that for a moment, her fingers absently threading through my hair.
I remember the gym bag in the trunk and reach over the back seat, pulling out a clean hoodie. As soon as she slips it on, I draw her back onto my lap, needing her close, needing to look at her.
Her fingers drift over my bare chest, slow and curious, tracing downward, circling the bruises, following the lines of my tattoos like she’s trying to memorize them.
I close my eyes, trying to steady myself, but it’s useless. Not with her like this.
Her touch lingers, then shifts lower, hesitant now, her fingers catching on the hem of my jeans. I move before she can go any further, catching her wrist. She stills, confusion flickering across her face, but she doesn’t fight me. Doesn’t ask.
The fear of my own head betraying me and ruining this is stronger than anything else.
So instead, she settles against me, her head resting in the curve of my neck. Her fingers find mine, lacing together, her thumbs brushing slowly over the scars like she’s trying to understand them.
The rain settles as we cuddle like this in the quiet thuds of it hitting the car.
I never imagined I could have something like this.
I’m so fucking happy right now.
Kiara
Present
Another day crawls by.
I pull on sports leggings with a top and dig through drawers looking for sneakers. Instead, my hand lands on an empty diary.
Great. A blank book. A perfect place to unravel.
I sit on the edge of the sofa and start writing down everything I’ve pieced together about the Vermilion so far.
Old notes, old theories, old ghosts.
I flip back to the beginning. The fire.The Varners—this town’s charity darlings on the surface, criminals underneath.
Two years ago, I traced Kasien’s adoptive father to drug deals and money laundering. Maybe connected to Vermilion, maybe not. Everything in this city eventually is. I remember thinking that if Kasien is alive, he’s somewhere in the criminal underworld.
But for years there was never one real trace of him.
Nothing linking him to anything. Nothing proving he wasn’t a corpse.
And now that I know he’s alive? The whole puzzle looks even more fucked up.
Enemy of Vermilion? Part of Vermilion? Betraying them? Protecting me? Using me? Every theory I write contradicts the one before.
I fill the rest of the page with one word. The one that kept appearing in the files I studied for my articles.
Myortvets.
I circle it.
Once. Twice. Five times.
Dead man.
