A wicked smile spreads across his lips, and he grips my hips tighter, pulling me closer against him. “Baby… I’ll bump start you anytime.”
A laugh breaks free from deep inside me as his lips forcefully meet mine again, and I let him devour me.
I fucking know he will.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
I pullinto an empty spot in the university parking lot and kill the engine. And when I look to my left, sure enough, the security guard is watching me with his usual sense of curiosity and unease.
“Bert,” I say, pulling off my helmet and nodding in his direction.
His eyes widen and he quickly nods at me, then turns and makes his way down the lot.
He’s yet to give me a ticket for parking here without a permit, and he’s never even spoken to me. I don’t know if his name is even Bert. But he looks like a Bert, and he’s never corrected me, so… he’s my friend Bert.
I make my way across campus toward the physics building, taking a moment to just breathe in the spring air and notice the green buds forming on the trees. It’s been a week of nonstop movement in Nova Scotia, as I managed an incoming shipment of cars from Europe and met with the Black Tides. But everything is just as it should be. Some cars are already en route to Fredericton for modifications or direct sale, while the rest are headed to Newfoundland for storage until the next auction.
And the Torngat Wraiths and the Black Tides have things locked down tighter than a deal sealed in blood. Every port, every ferry lane, and every unofficial entry the Sons had access to is closed off or watched. They haven’t tried to push their way through in months now, after they threw a little hissy fit when they realized all their potential channels were closed. But a few torched shipping containers didn’t break us. It just gave the RCMP something else to focus on.
We’re still watching the borders and keeping an eye on the ports, because we know they will try again at some point. And we’ll be ready when they do.
But I’ve been away for a week. And right now, I have only one focus.
I pull open the lecture hall door and immediately feel like I’m able to breathe deeper.
“The classical model says that if a particle encounters a barrier, and it doesn’t have the energy to cross, it will reflect back.”
I slide into my seat in the back row, watching as Cade gestures to the projection on the screen behind him of a tall barrier, and a pale, wavering line just in front of it.
“But a particle behaves like a wave,” he continues. He turns around to face the class, and his eyes land on me. He pauses for a moment as the corner of his lips tilts up slightly on one side, then he shifts his attention back to the class. “And waves don’t stop just because something gets in the way. So there’s always a chance it makes it through.” He lightly shrugs one shoulder. “Even if it doesn’t make much sense.”
A student near the front raises his hand, and Cade’s eyes flick to him. Cade hesitates for a moment as a flicker of annoyance crosses his features, and his chest rises. But he blinks and exhales, then points to the student.
“But wouldn’t the odds drop to zero if the barrier’s high enough? Like, isn’t there a point where it just can’t happen anymore?”
Cade huffs out a breath and a smirk tugs at the corner of his lips as his gaze drifts back to me.
I let a small smile form on my lips as I stare back at him… the man who had a wall so damn high he was even hiding from himself.
“Nothing’s truly impenetrable,” he says. “There’s always some flaw in the structure.”
“But if it doesn’t make sense physically…” the student says thoughtfully, “why does the math still say it’s possible?”
Cade’s eyes dart back to the student in front of him, and his jaw tightens. “The math doesn’t care what you think the rules should be.”
My smile grows as I watch the student’s eyes widen, and he stares back at Cade, frozen in fear.
But Cade drops his gaze and takes a deep breath, then looks back at the student with a softer expression. Even though I can tell he’s fighting for his fucking life to stay calm.
“You're trying to use classical rules to predict a quantum outcome. That’s like using a compass to navigate a black hole.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean it is. Probability doesn’t need your permission. Sometimes it only takes one chance in a million, and it still happens.” He pauses, shifting his gaze around the class before looking at the curious student again. “Make sense?”
The student's shoulders drop slightly, and he nods.
Cade nods too, then looks down at his watch. “That’s it for today.”
The room rustles with movement as backpacks zip and students stand before they all file out in slow, scattered clusters.I stay seated, letting the last of them disappear through the doors, until the space empties and my view clears.
