Chapter 25 - Keira

Beyond the Rosecreek Bottoms, two or three miles south of the town, a long, narrow road curls off the main drag into a dense patch of trees. If you drove past it every day, you still might have missed it.

When Ado pulls up to the safe house, I blink. It’s as if it’s materialized out of nowhere. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear their local mage must have been involved somehow.

We arrive just as dusk starts to bleed into night, and the last traces of light turn the horizon a soft pink against the shadowy treeline. It’s beautiful here.

The property is just as secluded as promised, ensconced in dark trees and casting a mirror-like reflection over the still, almost-black water. It’s angled over a tiny inlet—you probably wouldn’t even see it from the lake. I step out of the van, my boots crunching on the gravel. The air is crisp, but I have to gulp down oxygen. It’s as if the entire world has thinned out.

Ado starts to unload the van in silence. I stand in the dirt and count my breaths.

Inside, the house is simple. One large common room with big windows overlooks the lake, coupled with a small kitchen off to the side, two bedrooms down a narrow hallway and a tiny loft.

I track down the mains and turn the power on. Lights hum on throughout the house as Ado carries our bags inside, spitting light across the gloomy interior.

We unpack in silence. He makes quick work of checking the perimeter while I stand awkwardly by the bay window, watching the water below. The house is secure, that much I know —the team will have ensured that—but it doesn’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe.

As rain begins to pour, I can’t shake the feeling that something—or someone—is lurking just beyond the tree line. Every rustle of leaves or creak of the wooden floorboards makes me jump, and I catch myself constantly glancing toward the windows, half-expecting to see shadowy figures moving in the darkness.

Ado returns after making his rounds and starts setting up my gear on the kitchen table. I join him, though my mind is hardly focused on the task.

We continue our individual work from earlier, though neither of us has yet slept since we woke yesterday morning. We map additional intel on the auction ring and their buyers, trying to find holes in the team’s plan. One slip-up could leave one of us dead.

The only thing keeping me grounded is the work. This was how I survived for years.

Hours pass. Eventually, night falls. In the silence, the only sound is the gentle pattering of rain on the roof, the occasional scratch of our pens on paper, or the tapping of my keyboard. Byron bought it for me as a ‘welcome-back-to-the-team’ present when I arrived in Rosecreek all those weeks ago—it’s soft, peppermint green with light-up keys. My favorite color.

Exhaustion catches up to me fast. It seems to hit me all at once, a sucker punch that leaves me winded. I look over at Ado, who’s still hunched over the table, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the laptop screen. As I watch, he rubs at his bloodshot eyes with both hands.

“I think I’m going to turn in,” I murmur.

He looks up. His eyes find me in the darkness. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was waiting for something. “Yeah. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

I hesitate, unsure what to do next. The house is so small, and even though we’ve been in each other’s space for weeks, the proximity feels suffocating now.

“I’ll… take the smaller room,” I murmur, more to myself than to him. I can’t share a space with him tonight, not after everything.

He nods again, a hint of something—disappointment, maybe—flickering across his face. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Ado.”

I retreat down the hall to the little bedroom, the one with the obscured but distinctive view of Attlefolk, closing the door softly behind me. I lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling, listening to the gentle sounds of the lake lapping against the shore just beyond the walls, imagining Ado close by. Close enough to feel, but still too far to touch.

***

The rain persists all night and into the morning. The sky is commiserating with me, I think.

We work through the following day. Aris and Byron text periodically with updates. There have been no new leads on my pursuers, I’m told. All the cameras around the vandalized building were cut that morning.

Byron says this worries him, but it shouldn’t worry us. He tells me cheerily that it’s not my job to worry—it’s just my job to not die.

He can’t know it, but that sentence makes me feel unwell.

I can see the shape of the raids finally becoming perfect, though. I watch the final pieces fall into place.

Our plan is flawless. There aren’t any holes in it. The only liabilities are… me and Ado. And we both know it, though neither one of us will voice it out loud.

Byron was right. It really is our job not to die.

I cook dinner for us, a casserole I only know how to throw together because one of my aunts used to swear by the recipe. I don’t have much in the way of extended family, and both of my parents have long since moved abroad. I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. That’s the curse of having pregnant friends. Blaming Liv allows me to keep from blaming myself.

We eat in comfortable silence, both shoveling food into our mouths with our forks and leafing through paperwork with the other hand.

Ado washes up. I watch the rain hammering into the lake outside our windows. We’ve kept all the curtains drawn, but resisting the temptation to stick my head through and peek is difficult.

The dark sky is foreboding tonight. I squint into the distance, to Attlefolk, cocooned by the curve of the lake. No sign of movement.

From up here, I feel suspended. It’s an optical illusion. Lightning flashes, and for an instant, the water beneath the lakehouse looks like the freezing river I fell into as a child.

“Tomorrow’s the day. I’m going to sleep,” Ado tells me, rubbing his hands in a dish towel.

I spin around, startled. “Yeah. Uh, yeah, of course. Goodnight.”

He nods to me and pads away down the hallway.

I made some minor progress in calming my nerves this evening. I poured myself a glass of wine from the stash in the top cupboard and settled at the kitchen table under a blanket. I even light a candle to burn as I work.

However, not long after Ado retired to bed, I heard it through the walls.

It’s the sound of him speaking softly.

At first, I think he’s talking to himself, maybe going over the mission details again. But there’s something about the tone of his voice that pushes me from his chair. I’m not sure I can describe what it is.

Leaving my glass on the table, I creep down the hall, the candlelight sending my shadow flickering against the wall ahead of me as I move. My hand hovers over the doorknob in his room.

The sound of his voice is clearer now. It’s not a conversation. It’s a plea.

“Let me go back to her… please, let me go back. Let me save her…”

I freeze up like a prey animal. Even my wolf quiets inside me, and she is never quiet.

The murmuring continues, clearly heard now. I push the door open just a crack and peer inside.

The room is bathed in shadows, the only light coming from a sliver of moonlight filtering through the curtains. Ado is lying in bed, twisted in the sheets, his face contorted as if in pain. His hands clutch at the blankets as if trying to hold onto something that is slipping away. His breathing is ragged and uneven.

“Let me go back, Aris,” he mutters again, his voice breaking.

That was my heart breaking, I think, as I reckon with the agonizing pain in my chest.

He’s tried to explain himself so many times. I never allowed him to—I knew I couldn’t allow words alone to convince me of his truthfulness. If he betrayed me again, I knew I’d never get over it.

All that time, I thought I was alone. I was so sure, even now, that no one had even wanted to rescue me. That I’d been deemed too useless.

But this whole time, Ado was trying to find his way back to me.

Warmth spreads in my chest, the sickly, hot sensation of heartburn. I feel sick and rejuvenated all at once.

This whole time, I wonder if he was telling the truth when he told me he had thought about me for all those years? Did he think about me like I thought about him? All this time, I’ve been doubting him, questioning his intentions, pushing him away when he was trying to protect me. I feel the sting of my own mistrust like a double-edged sword.

I inch closer to the bed, my footsteps light, careful not to wake him. He’s still trapped in the nightmare, still whispering those same words, over and over.

Without thinking, I reach out and take his hand.

His skin is warm, his fingers tense as they curl around mine. I squeeze gently, trying to ground him, trying to pull him out of whatever dark place his mind has taken him.

“Shh,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. “It’s okay. You’re here. I’m here. I got out. I got out of there.”

Ado’s breathing starts to slow, and the tension in his body gradually eases as he relaxes into the mattress. He doesn’t wake up, but the nightmare seems to lose its hold on him. His murmurs quiet, replaced by soft, steady breaths.

I sit on the edge of the bed, watching him in the dim light, listening to his breathing in time with the rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheets. The room is silent again, but everything is as loud as a storm inside me.

Love you. Meant it.

Instead of returning to my room, I lie on the other side of the bed, careful to keep a small distance between us. I rest my head on the pillow, my eyes fixed on him, as if he’ll disappear if I look away.

His face is peaceful now, free from the torment of his nightmare. I focus on the sound of his breathing and sink into sleep.