The mountains stand behind him like silent witnesses.
He pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine, his breath warm against my lips.
“You feel like something I don’t want to lose,” he says, quieter now.
My heart does a full cartwheel.
“That’s inconvenient,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he agrees.
Neither of us moves.
And for the first time since I drove into Coyote Glen with my grandmother’s ashes buckled into the passenger seat, the idea of staying doesn’t feel accidental.
It feels like the beginning of something I’m not ready to walk away from.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Zane
What is that?
A strange stinging in my nostrils drags me from sleep. It’s almost bitter in the way it tinges my nostril hair.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself I imagined it. The apartment above The Hollow always carries leftover scents from the night before. Beer soaked into wood, citrus cleaner, the faint sweetness of whatever syrup Finn spilled and swore he wiped up.
This is none of those.
I breathe in again, deeper this time, and the sting sharpens into certainty.
Smoke.
Shit.
I bolt upright, my body already moving before my thoughts fully form, because instinct doesn’t wait for permission. My heart isn’t racing wildly, but it’s calm and alert in a way that tells me this matters. I swing my legs off the bed, pull on jeans in the dark, and step into the hallway without bothering with a light.
“Ryder,” I call out. “Buddy.”
His door opens almost at once. He doesn’t look confused, only awake in that quiet, assessing way he has. Finn’s doorfollows a second later, banging against the wall as he stumbles out, hair a mess until he inhales and goes still.
“You smell that?” he asks.
“I do,” I answer, already heading for the stairs.
We move down together, the Hollow below us dark and silent, chairs stacked, neon unplugged. The smell intensifies as we cross the floor toward the back, sharpening from suggestion into a sensation that presses against my lungs.
I unlock the back door and shove it open.
The night air hits my face, cool and clean except for the thin gray ribbon of smoke curling upward along the brick beneath the office window.
For half a second, I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing.
Then the shine registers.
Low against the wall, flames climbing from the stack of pallets we’d pushed tight to the building for pickup. They aren’t roaring out of control. They’re climbing with intent.
My chest goes cold in a way that has nothing to do with the season.
