“Great,” she managed. “Cool. Good information.”
She picked up her book and stood. Made it three steps toward the stairs before she stopped to turn back. Her face was crimson but her eyes held steady, and when she spoke, her voice carried the particular calm.
“So. Monday, Wednesday, Friday work for everyone? Or should I draft a rotation schedule?”
Lucian’s composure cracked,actuallycracked. His mouth opened and nothing came out.
She held up a finger. “I’ll send calendar invites.”
Then she turned and walked up the stairs without looking back.
I guess the upcoming week will be heated.
21
— • —
Mira
Hudson was dead.
I’d known since that night, but between everything and the chaos that followed, I hadn’t had the space to actually absorb it until now.
I stood at the edge of the cliff and let that sentence exist in my head without flinching. Below, the river carved through the gorge in a rush of white water and dark stone.
Solomon stood two steps behind me. Close enough to catch me if the ground gave way. Far enough to let me have this.
“Here?” I asked without turning around.
“Further downstream.” A pause. “You won’t find anything.”
“I know.” My hands were buried in the pockets of my jacket. “I just needed to see it.”
He didn’t ask why and understood that some truths needed to be confirmed with your own eyes, even when your brain had already accepted them.
For two years, Hudson had been a threat in my life. I changed cities for him. Changed my hair, my entire identity. Built a bookshop in a town no one visited because invisibility was the only currency I had left, and even that hadn’t been enough.
He’d burned it all down. Literally.
The wind picked up off the water and whipped my hair across my face. Copper now, not the dark brown I’d been hiding behind for months. I tucked the strands behind my ear and watched the current below churn over itself, relentless, erasing.
“Do you think that makes me a bad person?” I asked.
Solomon’s boots shifted on the gravel behind me. “What?”
“That I’m relieved. That a man is dead and my first reaction is‘finally.’“ I turned halfway, catching his profile against the tree line. “Normal people feel conflicted about death. I feel... lighter.”
His gaze held mine. Measured, steady, giving the question the weight it deserved before answering.
“You survived him,” he said. “Relief is not cruelty. It’s the absence of fear.”
Solomon may not speak much but he sure knows how to pick the right words when needed.
I turned back to the river. The gorge stretched below us and the water kept moving, indifferent to the violence that had touched its banks.
The strangest part was that I’d never actually been free before.
Not once in my entire life. I’d gone from abandoned orphan to foster care to Hudson’s apartment, surviving each transition by making myself smaller, quieter, less visible. The idea that there was no one left to run from, no locked door or violence around the corner...
