“That was intense.”
“Yeah.”
Silence stretches between us again.
But it’s different now.
Not tense.
Not uncertain.
Something else.
Something heavier.
“You can’t just—” she starts, then stops.
I step closer.
Slow.
Deliberate.
“But I did.”
Her breath catches.
“You don’t get to decide that I’m yours,” she says, but there’s no heat behind it now.
Just awareness.
I stop in front of her.
Close enough to feel the shift in her breathing again.
“I already told you,” I murmur.
“That doesn’t make it true.”
I tilt my head slightly.
“No,” I agree.
Her brows lift.
“But it doesn’t make it wrong either.”
That lands.
And this time, she doesn’t argue.
Chapter 15
Maddie
Idon’t remember when I start shaking.
Maybe it’s when he slips back into the trees, disappearing like he was never there. Maybe it’s when Ethan lets him go instead of chasing him deeper into the dark. Or maybe it’s now, standing here in the quiet aftermath, the forest settling around us like nothing just happened, like I didn’t just come face-to-face with something I’ve been trying to outrun.
