It’s Aspen.
She’s standing in the kitchen of her house, arms reaching for me as the roof groans and splinters. My boots hold me in place as beams fall, and there’s nothing I can do as I hear the crack of it breaking loose.
Just like with Rory, I’m helpless.
Aspen’s scream cuts straight through me, raw and terrified.
Not for Rory and not for Aspen.
I jolt upright in bed, chest slick with sweat, breath sawing in and out of my lungs.
For a long minute, I sit there, palms pressed hard against my knees as I try to blink away the look in Aspen’s eyes when she sees the branch falling. But her face lingers—wide-eyed and screaming for me to save her.
No chance in hell I’ll sleep after that. I don’t even try.
I pull on a sweatshirt and head downstairs. The garage smells like grease and old leather, and the Jeep sitting in the middle, uncovered from the last time I worked on it, dulls the pounding in my ears.
Something to do.
Familiar metal and parts I can get my hands on and make sense of when everything else is so jumbled.
A few turns of the socket and the dream starts to loosen its grip on me. I lose myself in the monotony, going over every possibility, looking for a problem until I find one I can fix.
When I straighten, stretching out my aching muscles, the stars are giving way to the rising sun. But I keep tinkering until I see the glow of her bathroom light spilling from her window.
She’s awake.
She’s okay.
I lean back against Myrtle, exhaustion finally catching up as I stare at the window.
Waiting for a shadow that proves she’s whole and breathing and exactly where she’s supposed to be.
The thought of not seeing her before she goes into work is more than I can handle, and my pulse stumbles at the implications of that.
Before I can think better of it, I head inside.
In the kitchen, my hands are restless without an engine under my finger, so I fiddle with the complicated coffee machine on her counter.
“Is this a fucking spaceship or a coffee machine,” I mumble.
“Hotshot, what are you doing?”
The rough tenor of sleep in her voice knocks the wind out of me.
I turn toward the sound.
Aspen’s in the doorway, draped in another loose T-shirt that hits mid-thigh, and her dark hair is rumpled, falling over one shoulder. My throat goes dry.
Soft.
Sleepy.
Safe.
My eyes drag over her once . . . then again—slower this time.
Just to be sure.
