Standing in a warehouse full of blood and carnage, holding each other like we're two immortal vampires with forever stretching out ahead of us.
She pulls back to reach for her clothes, tugging them on with hands that have finally stopped shaking.
"I need to say something."
"Anything."
She steadies herself with a breath. When she looks at me, her eyes are clearer than I've ever seen them.
"Thank you. For finding me. For refusing to give up. For loving me when I didn't know how to love myself."
I take her hands. Stop her from retreating into gratitude when she deserves so much more.
"Keira, baby, I didn't save you. You saved yourself. I just reminded you who you've always been."
"You did more than remind me." She rises on her toes, pressing her lips to mine in a kiss that tastes like promise. "You brought me back to life. And I'm going to spend every day making sure you know what that means to me."
"Starting now?" I tease.
Her laugh is light and real andfree. "Starting after we shower. And sleep for approximately one hundred years. And hold our son. Take me home, Tristan."
"Thought you'd never ask." I lace my fingers through hers and lead her toward the door.
We step out into the cold New Jersey night.
Stars are scattered across the sky like spilled diamonds on black velvet. The air tastes clean and sharp and new somehow. Like the world has been washed clean while we were inside.
Keira tips her head back, letting the breeze tangle her hair.
"I never thought I'd get this," she whispers, almost to herself.
"Get what?"
"A second chance." She turns to me, and the look on her face could restart my heart if it ever stopped. "At life. At love. At this, with you. All of it."
I press a kiss to her temple. "You deserve the world, and that's exactly what you're going to get."
"You've already given me everything I could ever want."
"I haven't even started."
I open the car door, but before she slides in, I catch her wrist. "You and me, Red. Forever and then some."
"Forever and then some," she echoes.
She settles into the passenger seat and I close the door.
As I round the car, I take one last look at the abandoned warehouse. The place where Ewan Calder took his final breath. The place where Keira rose from the ashes of who she used to be.
A tomb and a birthplace, all in one.
I get in the car, start the engine, and drive toward the rest of our lives.
And for the first time since I opened that lockbox, I let myself believe that we're going to be okay.
Better than okay.
We're going to beeverything.
