Page 102 of No Good Fight

“I’m not staying here,” I say. “I can’t stay here anymore.”

“I know.”

“I mean it. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until he’s caught, or gone, or whatever happens next.” I don’t add that I don’t know if I’ll ever want to live here again.

There’s only one place I feel like home…feel safe. And it’s with the frustrating man in front of me that’s being way too agreeable for his own good.

Ryder’s hand tightens on the open door. “Okay.”

“I need clothes, but I don’t want them from here. I don’t want anything he touched. I don’t want to pretend I’m fine because I survived again. I’m ready to get rid of everything and start all over again.”

His face changes then from the calm he’s wearing as a mask. He’s serious now, his eyes burning into mine. Like he understands exactly what survival keeps costing me.

“We’ll get whatever you need,” he says. “New clothes. Work stuff. Anything.”

I climb into the truck because my legs are starting to shake again. Ryder shuts the door and stands outside for a few seconds with one hand on the frame and his head lowered. When he gets behind the wheel, he doesn’t start driving right away. He looks at the building, at Mrs. Vance still talking, at Remy’s cruiser, at the open door of my apartment.

Then he reaches across the console, palm up.

I put my hand in his and smile despite myself when his fingers tighten around mine.

Back at Ryder’s house, the fence has been covered with a tarp, but I know the message is still there under the black plastic. The new cameras haven’t arrived yet. The old ones watch what they can, which isn’t enough and never was if I’m honest with myself, and for the first time, I don’t feel annoyed by the monitor glow in the living room.

I feel grateful for it.

That realization hurts.

Ryder locks the front door behind us and waits, one hand still on the deadbolt, like he expects me to call him out for checking it twice. I don’t. I stand in the foyer with my purse against my side and my throat raw from crying, and I understand with sudden, awful clarity why he keeps counting exits and watching windows and memorizing every detail that doesn’t quite fit.

Preston isn’t haunting me.

He’s hunting me.

Ryder turns from the door. “Alex⁠—”

“I’m staying,” I say before he can ask too carefully. “I’m staying here.”

He goes still.

“And I’m taking this seriously. All of it. The calls, the notes, the cameras, the reports, the rules I hate, the checking in. I’m not promising I won’t argue, because let’s not destroy the foundation of my personality, but I’m done pretending this is only harassment. And I’m staying with you because you’re the only place I feel safe. But I swear to god that I will kill you with a dull plastic spork if you give me shit about it.”

Ryder comes toward me, stopping close enough that I can feel the heat of him without being swallowed by it. His hand rises slowly, giving me time, and when I don’t move away, he cups the side of my face with a gentleness that nearly breaks me.

“I’m sorry it took him touching you for the danger to feel real.”

I cover his hand with mine. “It felt real before. I just didn’t want to live like it was.”

His forehead comes to mine, and for a minute, neither of us says anything. There isn’t anything useful to say. My apartment is no longer safe. His house isn’t untouched, either. But it feels safer because he’s here. My body keeps remembering gloved hands and a ski mask, but it also remembers Ryder’s mouth, his fingers, the dark turning into something mine.

That doesn’t cancel out the fear.

It gives me somewhere else to stand.

Later, after Remy calls with no real update and Marcy threatens to personally come over with clothes she’s going to buy from the store for me, things are a bit calm. Ryder walks the property with a flashlight in one hand and his phone in the other. I watch him do it from the living room window, wrapped in his hoodie again, while he checks the gate, the fence line, the corner near the pine, the back door, even the garage.

Last night, I would have seen the patrol and worried his fear was becoming bigger than both of us. Tonight, I understand all of it and I’m ready to face the darkness I’ve been trying to run from.

Preston tried to take me today, and he’s going to try again.