Chapter 3
Sarah - 2 Weeks later
The bell chimes behind the last straggler from the morning rush. I exhale for the first time in two hours.
My reflection catches in the chrome napkin dispenser—hair escaping my ponytail, coffee stain on my apron I don't remember getting, dark circles still shadowing my eyes. But my hands hold steady.
Two weeks in Nightfall Cove. An apartment above Moonshadow Books with creaky floors and windows that rattle when the wind picks up. A job that pays in cash, free coffee, and Betty's mothering. A town where nobody asks questions I can't answer.
I haven't seen Knox since that first night. Finn brought me to Betty's, got me the job. Brought my car back a few days later and refused the money I tried to press into his hands.
Knox himself hasn't shown his face.
The thought drags the memory with it before I can stop it. The guest room at the clubhouse. Rain streaming down the windows.His face above mine as I reached up and touched his tusk like I had any right to.
I still don't know what possessed me. Exhaustion, maybe. The strange safety I felt around him when I should have been terrified. But I'd looked at those iron-capped tusks and needed to know what they felt like under my fingers.
Cool metal first. Then smooth bone, warm from his body heat.
And then everything changed.
His whole body went rigid. His nostrils flared. I saw it in his eyes—a hunger that made my breath catch and my heart kick in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
He grabbed my wrist. Stopping me.
For one heartbeat we stood there, my fingers still on his tusk, his hand wrapped around my arm, and I felt it. A pull. A click in my chest I couldn't explain.
Then he stepped back and left the room without another word.
I haven't seen him since.
He's avoiding me.
I shove the thought down and drag my rag across the counter. I'm good at shoving things down. Five years with Peter taught me that.
"You gonna stare at that counter or wipe it?" Betty's voice carries from the kitchen, warm despite the words.
"Wiping. Definitely wiping."
Betty emerges with a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, setting it on the counter in front of me. At fifty-five, she moves like a woman half her age, silver-streaked red hair pinned up, practical shoes that have walked a million miles across this floor.
"You skipped breakfast again."
"I had coffee."
"Coffee isn't food, honey." She slides onto the stool across from me, watching me with those sharp green eyes. "You're skin and bones. Eat."
I take a bite to make her happy. Then another, because the eggs taste perfect and I can't remember the last time someone made me breakfast. Peter never—
I stop that thought cold.
"There's that look again." Betty's voice softens. "The one you get when you're a million miles away."
"Bad habit." I manage a smile. "I’m working on it."
She doesn't push. That's the thing about Betty—she asks careful questions, accepts half-answers, fills the silences with kindness instead of pressure. In two weeks, she's learned more about me than anyone in Connecticut knew in five years.
The good parts, anyway. Not the bruises or the lies or the way I learned to sleep with one eye open.
