Page 100

The bedroom door clicked shut behind Lakelyn, and the silence she left behind pressed against me harder than anything had in years.

If I still had a heartbeat, I was sure it would’ve been hurting.

I stayed near the center of the room, facing the spot on the rug where she had been moments ago.

Her scent still lingered around me, warm vanilla mixed with cocoa butter and the faint salt of her tears.

Watching her sit on the edge of my bed and break down had done something to me that death itself hadn’t managed to do. She had cried because she thought I chose to disappear, that I had walked away and left her pregnant, confused, and alone to raise our son without me.

I didn’t leave you, baby. They took me from you; there’s a difference.

I wanted to yell it loud enough for her to hear me through the door.

When her grief overwhelmed her, it had pulled me toward her before I could stop myself. I pushed against whatever invisible barrier still separated us and poured everything I had into reaching her. I hadn’t been able to hold her the way I wanted, but for one brief moment, I managed to give her warmth against her back. It wasn’t much, but I needed her to feel something other than loneliness in that room.

The effort had drained me.

My hands still flickered faintly around the edges, unstable like static fighting to hold a picture on an old television screen, but beneath the exhaustion was something I hadn’t felt this strongly before: energy.

Lakelyn being inside the mansion had changed something.

Maybe it was her.

Maybe it was Kaidence.

Maybe it was having the whole damn family under this roof after all the years I spent surrounded by empty rooms.

Whatever the reason, I was stronger than I had been yesterday.

For years, making a light blink or shifting something small took damn near all the strength I had. Now the mansion no longer felt like it was draining me just for existing inside it. The cold that usually settled into every room had eased, and instead of fighting the house, I felt connected to it.

I passed through the bedroom door and entered the hallway.

Across the hall, Kaidence was turning his bedroom into Jurassic Park.

My son.

Just hearing him inside my house hit differently.

He had toys scattered through a room that belonged to him. His voice carried through halls that had been silent for too damn long, and every little sound made the mansion feel less like the place where my life ended and more like the home I had always intended it to be.

Then, from farther down the hall, a familiar sound drifted toward me.

Off-key humming.

Willow.

I followed the sound to her open doorway and found Willow standing in front of the oversized bathroom vanity in her socks. In less than an hour, she had already taken over half the counter with bottles of serum, lotion, moisturizer, perfume, makeup brushes, and enough beauty products to make it look like she’d been living there for three months.

“Yes, ma’am,” she murmured to her reflection while turning her face toward the light. “This lighting is immaculate. Skin about to be completely disrespectful to everybody in Hallowridge.”

A grin spread across my face.

Willow was still Willow.

Same loud mouth.

Same attitude.