Alone again.
The silence stretches, thicker now, heavier with everything that was just said.
He watches me.
I watch him.
Neither of us moves.
Neither of us speaks.
But something has shifted.
Cracked open.
“You don’t get to say things like that,” I say finally.
His brow lifts slightly. “Like what?”
I gesture between us. “That.”
He steps closer, slow and deliberate.
“You’re still here,” he says.
That answer again.
It should not hit the way it does.
But it does.
Every time.
“And you’re still not leaving,” he adds.
My breath catches because he is right.
Because I have not.
Because despite the danger, the tension, and the way he looks at me like he already knows how this ends, I am still standing here, right in front of him.
And I do not move.
Chapter 10
Ethan
Idon’t like how quiet it gets after they leave.
It isn’t the natural kind of quiet, not the soft hush of wind through the trees or snow settling into the ground. This feels different, tighter somehow, like the mountain itself is holding its breath and waiting for something to break.
Maddie feels it too.
She does not say it out loud, but I see it in the way she lingers near the window without fully stepping into the light, in the way her fingers keep brushing the edge of the counter like she needs something solid beneath them, something she can anchor herself to.
“You’re pacing,” she mutters.
I glance at her. “You’re watching the door.”
