I’m different. I compartmentalize but wear every emotion on my sleeve, unable to suppress even the slightest frustration. Faith does it, and it’s no longer even a thing. I envy her, but more than that,I fear for her.
One person can only take so much before they detonate.Will she explode outward, or will she self-destruct?
Jared smiles sheepishly at Faith before wrapping her in a quick side hug. His eyes snag on Dale, burning for a second before blinking away. “How’ve my best girls been?”
Dale flames red, but she smiles kindly at him. “We’re good. Better now that you’re back. We missed your bartending skills.” Jared shoots her a wink, but Dale ignores it. “How was Colorado?”
It’s the mention of Colorado, the repetition of his name that have me finally remembering why it all sounds familiar. He’s the man the bartender and Faith gossiped about months ago.
Jared shrugs. “Cold, bleak. Not the least bit what I expected.”
“Did I hear you have a kid or something like that?” Dale asks.
Jared’s face droops before he looks over his shoulder, nodding his head to the ‘kid’ in question. She’s a girl, almost a woman, likely fourteen or fifteen, with stringy, jet black hair andthick black makeup that matches the clothes cloaking her thin frame. She looks sad, tortured,angry.
“Where’s her mother?” I don’t mean to pry or sound rude, but seeing her defenseless is like witnessing myself twenty years earlier.
Jared, being as good as Faith assured he was, only smiles. “She left Nat with me. I’m doing the best I can, and honestly, I think she secretly likes being with me better, she just won’t say it. If you won’t corrupt her too much, I’d love for her to sit with you guys instead of at the bar. I’d hate to get into another fight tonight with some random old guy who thinks he can look at her.”
Stetson pats the peeling leather seat. “Absolutely! We hate men at this table. Bring her over.”
Dale and Faith both blush, but I crack a smile, unable to deny it.
“Well, not you, obviously,” Faith assures him.
Jared laughs, and it’s a pleasant, deep sound that reminds me of Rafael, just less flirty. “Sure. You gotta have someone good looking to provide the drinks.” He winks and walks toward the bar to grab the girl.
“He’s still so hot,” Faith groans, fanning herself.
“Faith!” Dale scolds, swatting at her hand.
“Seriously, don’t let McCrae hear you. He doesn’t share,” I say.
Faith just looks at me, a somber but knowing grin pulling her rosy cheeks upward. “I won’t let a man tell me what I can and can’t do. If he wants to be with me,he’ll have to change.”
But change how?I still don’t know.
FIFTY-TWO
VALENTINA
December 30th, 2025
As I walkinto the house, I get the overwhelming sense of being hunted. It’s quiet; so quiet, I can hear the barn door rattling against the opposite wall down the hill from inside the house. It’s also dark, all the lights turned off besides a single bulb over the stove, beckoning me into the kitchen like a moth toward a flame.
I feel like I’m being hunted—like a rabbit in a wolf’s den—but I can’t seem to turn away, drawn to the light as if it might offer some kind of absolution.
The hairs on my neck stand, and I hold my breath as I reach the light, looking down at the stove and the space around it for clues.
Where’s Rafael?
Fear and adrenaline mix in my veins, an intoxicating cocktail, and even though I know I should retreat to a safer place, I’m already hooked on this heady feeling of chase that pumps through me.
“Are you scared, little rabbit?” I hiss in surprise as his hushed voice fills the kitchen. I whirl around, but the dark filling the house seems inky—impossible to slice through with the bare eye.
I know now that was his intention: draw me into the light so he could find me, but I could not find him.
I lick my lips. “I’m not a little rabbit.”
