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“Baby, I don’t know where you are,” I whispered, my throat tightening. “But please… come home.”

I waited a few seconds as if some impossible part of me still expected an answer. Nothing came, so I started the car and pulled away.

I already had a nursing position waiting for me in Ravenport and a two-bedroom apartment ready for Kaidence and me. It wasn’t some exciting fresh start, and I wasn’t fooling myself into believing moving hours away would make me stop loving Caspian or wondering where he was. I just needed enough distance from Hallowridge to find a little peace, and to raise my son without every street and familiar place reopening the same wound.

Chapter two

Caspian

Being dead was some bullshit.

What fucked with me most was how little everything around me had changed.

My house still stood exactly as I left it.

My cars stayed lined up in the garage, my clothes still hung in the closet, and bills kept coming like life had the nerve to keep moving without me. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get in one of my cars and leave, couldn’t walk into one of my businesses and handle shit, couldn’t tell anybody I was standing right there. People came through my front door talking about me while I stood a few feet away, invisible to every last one of them.

That shit never stopped feeling strange.

Hell, most days, I couldn’t even move a damn object without concentrating until whatever energy I had left felt drained.

I knew I was dead—that part hadn’t taken long to figure out. What I still didn’t understand was why I was there, why I couldn’t get farther than the gates, or why death had left me close enough to the people I loved to see pieces of their lives but powerless to step back into them.

I had watched Mama come into my house looking for answers I couldn’t give her. I watched her sit in my office and make phone calls trying to find a son who was standing in the same room. I had listened to her talk about Lakelyn, about police, searches, rumors, and dead ends while I stood there wanting to tell her she could stop looking for me alive.

But she couldn’t hear me… nobody could.

So eventually I stopped wasting what little strength I had trying to scream at people who would never respond.

Speaking of Mama, she had been at my house most of that morning, moving between my office and the kitchen with her phone pressed to her ear while she went over bills, maintenance, and all the other shit that had become her responsibility after I disappeared.

I stayed close whenever she came.

She was still my mama, and some habits apparently survived death.

I was near the kitchen island when something in her voice caught my attention.

“Okay, sweetheart. Just be careful on the road.”

I turned toward her.

Mama listened for a few seconds before her expression softened. “Lakelyn, sweetie, don’t apologize to me. You have to do what’s best for you, my grandbaby, and your mental. I understand that.”

Lakelyn.

That morning, I left her house thinking I had a lifetime ahead of me.

I thought I was going to handle my business, collect what was owed to me, put on that ridiculous suit, and pick her up at eight-thirty. I was supposed to see her open the door in that black Morticia dress, hear her complain about her heels, kiss her neck while she fussed about her makeup, and end the night sliding a custom diamond onto her finger.

People talk about living on borrowed time like somebody gives you a date when the debt is due. You move through your days making plans for tomorrow, next week, next year, arrogant enough to think the clock will wait on you to finish what you started.

I was no different.

And by the time the truth hit me, the trap had already snapped shut.

I moved closer even though it wouldn’t help me hear the other side of the conversation.

Mama rested one hand against the counter. “Call me when you get settled. I don’t care how late it is.”