I step into the room, my shoulder blocking the doorframe, my chest rising in a slow, hard line.
“What are you doing?”
Bella doesn’t turn her head. She just grabs a cotton shirt from the drawer, her breath coming in short, rattling gasps that fill the small space.
“I’m packing.”
“You just spent three hours helping me sew up Atlas.” My voice is a low, gravel-rough growl, the fury I’ve been holding back since the hearing is starting to bleed through. “The nonprofit papers are on the desk. Max is down at the lodge chasing Cascade’s signature on the release. The note is clear. We have the future Jesse wanted for us.”
“I don’t do futures.” She turns on me, her gold-flecked eyes wide and wild with a raw, suffocating panic. She clutches a rolled flannel shirt to her chest like a shield, her chest heaving. “Don’t you get it? Things are moving too fast. Way too fast. A month ago, I didn’t know your name. I was a stranger driving up a mountain to sign a deed and leave. Now... now I’ve shared your bed, we fought Cascade, and you’re talking about a future. I can't do it.”
I take a step into her space, my hands flat on the mattress on either side of her bag, forcing her to look at my face.
“You can. There's a future here. We build it. Together. In the snow, in the operating room, we build it brick by brick.”
“No.” She shakes her head, backing away until her spine hits the pine dresser, her hands dropping the shirt. “You don’t understand. Everyone near me dies. My parents. Jesse. I talked strangers back from the ledge for three years because it was the only way I knew how to pay the debt, but I’m the one who carries the curse. If I stay here, if I put down roots and let myself wantthis place... if I let myself want you... I will destroy it. I’ll lose you too, and I won’t survive a second Jesse.”
She slides her hands down the smooth pine of the dresser, her knuckles turning white under the yellow light.
“I’m not Jess.” I tamp down the anger rising in my chest. I want to shout, but that’s not what she needs. Right now, she needs me to be steady. I take a half-step forward, my voice softening. “He didn't leave us to drown. Yes, he's gone, but he didn't throw us away. He willed you half this clinic. He left you Atlas. In his own quiet, broken way, he was looking out for both of us, giving us each what we desperately needed.”
Bella’s throat works, her hazel eyes searching mine, wet but still wide with fear. “And what did we need?”
“Someone to love.” The words heavy and real between us.
She flinches, shaking her head as if the words are a physical threat.
“I was three years old when they pulled me out of the ditch.” Her voice drops to a raw, breathless thread that makes my jaw tighten. “It was raining. I remember the smell of gasoline, wet earth, and the flashing red lights in the puddles. My parents were dead in the front seats, their bodies crushed, and I was sitting in the back, completely untouched. Just a scratch on my knee. A little scratch. As if the universe spared me just to show me what it could take away.”
She looks at me, her eyes bright with tears that don't fall.
“I spent my whole life trying to be the strong one, the one who didn't need anything, the one who could fix everyone else. And then Jesse hanged himself. I spent years talking to him on thephone, listening to the strain in his voice, and I missed the signs. I didn't see the darkness closing in on him. Everyone who stays close to me gets ruined. If I stay here, the next loss will be you. Or Atlas. I can’t carry that. I won't.”
I step closer, the floorboards creaking under my boots, the heat of the room suddenly feeling like a furnace.
“So you’re going to pre-empt it. You’re going to walk away before anyone has a chance to die on your watch.”
“Yes,” she whispers, her gaze dropping to the floorboards, her fingers curling into the grey wool of the sweater. “Because at least this way, the choice is mine. I don’t have to wait for the sheriff to knock again. I don't have to stand by another grave.”
A dry, harsh laugh cuts from my throat, the sound hollow in the small bedroom.
“That’s not survival. You’re dying slowly in a room with a headset. You're committing suicide by installments.” My hands drop to my sides, my chest setting into a rigid, flat line. “You’re running because you’re afraid.” The words are slate-hard, cut from the same stone as the summit ridge.
“I’m not afraid.”
“You hide behind that phone headset in Denver because it’s safe. You counsel strangers all night because they can’t break your heart. You don’t have to risk a single thing of your own. But the second a real life is on the table, the second a man stands in front of you and asks you to fight beside him, you pack your bag and look for the exit.” I shake my head and grip her hands. “You’re stronger than this.”
Bella flinches as if I hit her. A sharp, jagged breath escapes her lips, her gold-flecked eyes turning dark with a quiet, matching fury.
“You don’t want me,” she says, her voice a sharp, cutting weapon in the quiet room. “You want a piece of Jesse you can keep. You’re just holding onto me because you think saving me will pay off the debt of letting him die.”
The blow lands clean, cutting straight through the scar tissue of my shoulder, the pain of it white-hot.
We stand feet apart in the quiet room, two people who know exactly where the armor is thinnest, bleeding from the wounds we just gave each other. The silence between us is a vertical wall, absolute and freezing.
I step back, my face setting into the flat, expressionless mask of my uniform days.
My tone drops to a gravelly, dead register. “The Cascade contract is on the reception desk. The pen is beside it. If you’re leaving, sign it. Take the developer’s money and go back to your headset.”
