Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Cyrus

How could I not fall in love with a town named Tranquility? That’s what I told myself when I sat down and looked at a map of Colorado, trying to figure out where in the fuck I could disappear to. Leaving the state was always a possibility, but I wasn’t sure I could even do that—not alone, at least, and not forever.

It didn’t make sense, when you thought about it. I wanted to withdraw, to fade into nothingness, but I also couldn’t find it in myself to leave the state I’d been born in. The one I’d shared with my mom. Where we had stayed up all night, giggling and talking like the best of friends, eating popcorn with extra butter and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt on top. The state where she told me she would always love me no matter what, and if there was ever anything I needed to share with her, that her love for me would never change, which had given me the courage to come out to her at twelve years old.

But it was also the place where I would come home some days and see her passed out on the couch with a needle in her arm. Where I held her while she cried and told me she was sorry she fell off the wagon again, promised she would kick the drugs and be the mom I deserved. And she tried. She always tried, but it never worked, and one day when I found her, I couldn’t wake her up.

She had never woken up again.

And no matter how much I’d sworn I would never do the same thing, depression and loneliness had led me straight to drugs’ doors, where I’d busted the thing down and had taken my fill…until I’d woken up from my OD, lucky I wasn’t dead too…

And after a year sober from drugs, sex, and an ex-boyfriend who liked to provide me with both, and liked me to provide his friends with both, I’d landed in Tranquility.

But, unsurprisingly, there had been no magic fix. After a few weeks there, I still felt as alone on the inside as I always had. People were friendly enough. They waved on the streets, and held the door open for you, and all those things you heard about small towns, but at twenty-five, I was starting to believe I was the problem. That something inside me was broken and maybe it would never be fixed.

Like I did most things, I buried that inside me and got into the shower to get ready to go to work at the hardware store.

On the way, I stopped by the local coffeehouse to get my iced, extra-shot latte. I might have given up cocaine and heroin, but I could never give up caffeine. A guy was allowed to have one vice, right?

“Hey, Cyrus. How are you this morning?” Melody, the barista, asked. I heard she was the owner too, but she worked the counter every time I was there. She was kind, really kind. Probably too kind for me, and though it seemed like she might be trying to be my friend, I was hesitant. I had a knack for hurting people, and for getting hurt myself.

“Hello! I’m doing great. Just needed my daily pick-me-up.” I gave her a wide, fake smile that no one ever recognized wasn’t real. Sometimes it was scary how easy it was to fake it, to pretend you were happy and life was great. Most people didn’t take the time to look, not really, because if they did, they would see most of us were barely hanging on. But my shit wasn’t any more important than anyone else’s, and it wasn’t their responsibility to make sure I was okay. That didn’t mean that sometimes I didn’t just…wish someone would ask. That they would truly care if I was okay.

“Daily? Come on now,” Melody teased, starting to make my drink without me having to tell her what I wanted. “Twice a day’s more like it.”

“Why do you gotta air all my dirty laundry?” I volleyed back to her, and Melody laughed.

While she did her magic, I went to the end of the counter and browsed the internet on my phone.

It was a hot July—hard to believe that in a few months’ time snow would cover the ground and I’d spend my days bundled up and wishing I had a fireplace. Mom had always loved them, and she used to talk to me about the one in her house growing up.

Melody chatted with me for another moment after I got my coffee, and then I made my escape. I got to Harry’s Hardware store early and sat on the bench outside. We were right on Main Street, all around me people walking their dogs and going into shops. Does she feel alone too? What about her or him? It was a game I played as I observed the people passing by. I felt trapped between this place of not wanting anyone to know my loneliness, but also feeling less that way if I knew others experienced it too.

I’d drunk about a quarter of my coffee, when two older men came out of the store and stood on the other side of my bench to smoke and chat. Half of my coffee left, when I heard them say, “Oh, it’s that time of the month. Crazy Crow Jackson comes down the mountain.”

I looked up from my phone. They’d piqued my interest—of course I wanted to see what they were talking about. I followed their gazes across the street, where I saw a tall man with dark hair that hung past his shoulders. It was loose against his back, some hanging around his face like a curtain shielding him from view. He was getting out of an older pickup truck, wearing a pair of threadbare jeans with paint on them, work boots, and a tight black T-shirt. Whoever the fuck Crazy Crow was, it was clear the man spent a lot of time either working out or doing manual labor. Even through his clothes I could see how incredible his body was. Not too bulky, but enough to grab my attention. He was long, lean, and incredibly cut, the sleeves of his T-shirt almost too tight on his muscles. Yeah, his chest and arms were definitely broader than mine. I’d been called a twink often for a reason.

I watched as he pushed a lock of hair behind his ear. He had a scruffy beard and strong hands. I couldn’t make out his eye color, but his jaw looked square and strong, even under the hair.

Inexplicably, my stomach tensed. Not in an uncomfortable way, just…a different one. I wasn’t sure how to explain it other than that.

One of the men said, “He needs to get the hell outta here and go somewhere he belongs.”

“Who is he?” I found myself asking while he went into the post office.

The two men looked at me like I’d grown a second head, probably because they didn’t recognize me and I was talking to them. And apparently, everyone knew who this man was.

“I’m new in town,” I explained.

They gave me that look that said they wished people would stop moving to their small town, and while I got it, that wasn’t really the way the world worked.

“His dad was the leader of that cult, The Enlightened. Bunch of wackos, if you ask me. They secluded themselves in a community up the mountain, up higher than the other houses. His dad lost it one day, killed his mama, then tried to kill him. His dad went to prison, everyone in the cult left, but he came back. Been living up there ever since.”

“Alone?” I asked, heart pumping overtime.

“Far as anyone knows,” the second man replied. “Probably lures women up there and does all sorts of unspeakable things to them.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” the first agreed. “He comes to town about once a month, except when the snow comes. Then he’s stuck up there, doing God knows what for months on end.”

On the mountain for months on end? And other than that, only coming down once a month? I…couldn’t imagine that, didn’t know if I thought he was nuts for doing it or if I was jealous he had that life and I didn’t.

My gaze found the post office again, and I wondered what the mountain man was doing inside. Most likely checking his mail or sending something out, but what was it? I didn’t figure his bills came that way. But then, hell, did he even have internet? Electricity?

“Does he have power up there?” He had to, right? It was impossible to live without it.

“Yeah. He’s on the very edge of how far up he can go and still have power. He’s still secluded, though. Some of us went up there after the cult cleared out. It was weird as shit. I think they were Satanists.”

“I heard they were witches.” The second guy took a drag of his cigarette. “The guy is batshit crazy. Doesn’t even fuckin’ speak.”

“He’s mute?”

They both shrugged, but then the first man said, “I don’t know what the fuck it is. I just know he doesn’t talk. I think there’s something wrong with him.”

I thought there was something wrong with them, talking about him the way they did. It was always so damn easy for people to judge others if they didn’t live the exact same way they did, to judge people for addiction or mental illness or, hell, the color of their skin or who they loved. I’d seen it a million times. I wasn’t surprised anymore. All it did was make me feel even more intensely this heaviness that lived inside my bones.

I tuned them out as they talked about the mountain man. My eyes were riveted on the door until he came out, my breath catching in my throat. He put a bag into the cab of his truck, then walked down the street until he disappeared.

I wanted to know more about him. Why he was alone, and why he didn’t speak. If it was a choice or if he couldn’t. I wanted to know why he’d gone back up that mountain after his own dad tried to kill him. I wanted to know what it was like to be secluded that way.

None of this made any sense. I shouldn’t be curious about a man like him, but I couldn’t stop the feeling from growing inside me.

He didn’t come back before I had to go inside for my shift. I stocked and worked the register, whatever they needed me to do. Half an hour after clocking in, the mountain man was still on my mind. We were slow, the other employee stocking now while I manned the register, waiting for someone to need me. The bell over the door dinged.

“Hi,” I said automatically. “Welcome to—” My gaze connected with the mountain man’s. He was…fuck, he was even bigger up close. I wasn’t a short guy at six feet, but he probably had at least three inches on me. His dark-brown gaze snapped to mine, something wild and feral about it.

This man was dangerous. One look at him was all it took to know that. The wildness radiated off him like heat from a furnace.

He took slow, measured steps toward one of the aisles, his stare never leaving me. My breath was trapped in my lungs. My heart had stopped beating. I couldn’t figure out why he had this effect on me. He was gorgeous, that much was obvious, but I’d seen a hundred hot guys in my life, and this, looking at him, had nothing to do with sex appeal.

He looks as lonely as I feel.

Maybe lonelier.

It was stupid to think I could see that in him. I didn’t know this man. But I sensed his fierceness, his detachment from the world, and while that should push me away, all it did was draw me in.

While he walked around, he kept gazing at me from under hooded eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. The moment he stepped around the corner, right before he was gone from my view, I was pretty sure the left side of his mouth had kicked up just slightly…in a snarl? A half-smile? I had no idea. He knew I was watching him. Knew I was afraid of him. And maybe he liked that.

For the first time in a long time, maybe since I’d snorted coke up my nose or shot heroin into my veins those initial times, I was interested in something, felt something other than emptiness.

My feet were rooted to the floor. I couldn’t move, despite the urge to follow him, to approach him and…do what? Ask him if he needed any help?

A customer came to the counter, not giving me any choice but to stay where I was.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” I asked, gaze shooting toward the aisles running the length of the store, hoping for a glimpse at the mountain man.

The customer rambled on and on, and honestly, I tuned her out. Hopefully she didn’t say anything I needed to respond to because my brain had taken a road trip and was with the man—with Crow.

When I finished, she said goodbye, and I immediately stepped around the counter to look for him. It was wrong of me to want to gawk at him, to treat him like he was some kind of show, but I didn’t know how to tamp down my newfound curiosity.

I went down one of the rows but didn’t see him. What if he came to the check-out counter and my coworker got to him before I did? At least if I stayed at the register, I was guaranteed to see him again. Even if he didn’t buy anything, he’d have to walk by me to leave.

I pretended to straighten up the candy while I waited for him. Fear made the back of my neck tingle, but entwined with that was being intrigued by him, wanting to know how he made it work, living away from people, and if he was happy, but he couldn’t be, could he? Not if what I’d seen in his gaze was real.

I was obsessing over him. I’d never done this with a person before, but I’d done it with feelings or experiences. I was known to be hot or cold with people and about things, but when I was hot, I was scorching. While I knew it wasn’t healthy, I still wanted to chase down the feeling.

A few minutes later I felt someone looming behind me, felt a blast of warmth and a hot stare on that spot on my nape where the hairs stood on end. I turned around, knowing it was him. He pinned me with his intense gaze, with those wild eyes that almost didn’t look real.

I wasn’t proud over the fact that I gasped and took a step backward, only to be stopped by the counter. Crow just stood there watching me, the hair on his left side pushed behind his ear, but on the right, it hung down, shielding part of his face.

Move. Do something. Say something.Because somehow, I knew if I didn’t, Crow would stand there all day watching me. Or hell, maybe he would just walk out with his belongings, and then I’d get this mountain man arrested because I couldn’t make myself do my job.

He took a step closer. Blood rushed through my ears, panic flaring inside me as he reached out toward me, but then he just set a product down on the counter beside me. I breathed out a sigh of relief.

Get it together, Cyrus. You’re being an idiot.

He wasn’t going to do anything to me in the middle of Harry’s Hardware.

Clearing my throat, I walked around the counter to stand behind the register again. “Did…did you find everything okay?” I asked, but of course, he didn’t respond. He just continued to place tools, staining, brushes, and other items on the counter. He had pulled a flat cart with him, stacked with wood and a couple of propane tanks.

I tried to think of something to say, but I was drawing a blank. So I just continued scanning his items, and Crow didn’t take his eyes off me as he finished up. When I got to the big items, I had to step around the counter with the scanner. When I breathed in, I could swear he smelled like Douglas fir mixed with a natural musk that went straight to my head.

I bent down to finish scanning the items, and when I looked up, he was watching me, head cocked slightly as though he was trying to figure something out. This time when I opened my mouth, “I—” came out, but I bit back the rest of my words when he gave me a simple shake of his head.

He didn’t want me to talk to him. The ache in my chest grew, though I shouldn’t have been surprised and I also shouldn’t care.

I went back around the counter and said, “Two hundred and thirteen dollars and fifty-seven cents.” My voice was scratchy, like I hadn’t used it in too long.

Crow paid in cash, setting the money down for me to pick up. When I gave him his change, I did the same, so he wouldn’t have to touch me if he didn’t want to. I smiled, hoping he knew that was done as a kind gesture, but got a frown in return.

Then he reached out, and I gasped again, my eyes squeezing shut, afraid of what he would do. He didn’t touch me, and I knew I should open my eyes, should say something or do something, but I just stood there like that for a few moments, maybe hoping he would touch me while also afraid that he would.

When I heard the bell over the door, I finally looked up, in time to see him disappear from view.

I didn’t know what that had been—my response to him, or what he’d planned to do. All I knew was I couldn’t wait until next month. I wanted to see him again.

*

Thankfully, I wasoff the next day, because I couldn’t make myself go to sleep that night. I spent hour after hour on the internet, researching everything I could about Crow and the cult. There wasn’t a lot of information, and what was known had been learned after Crow’s dad—whom they’d called The Chosen—had killed his mom. Since that day, only a few ex-members had spoken, selling their stories to the highest bidder. So I wasn’t even sure if any of it was true, or how much of it was.

Others from the cult had kept to themselves. Not to the extent that Crow did, but they didn’t speak about their time in The Enlightened, likely wanting to forget it existed.

Apparently, all the men had been given vasectomies. They weren’t allowed to have children until they were “fully Enlightened,” whatever that meant, and of course, no one had been that except Crow’s dad, the leader. It was why there hadn’t been any other children in the compound. Crow hadn’t grown up with anyone his age, no kids at all. While I’d been teased mercilessly as a child and hadn’t ever had friends, at least I’d known what it was like to be around other people my age.

Did that mean he’d never seen or talked to another person his age until he was sixteen and put in foster care?

I struggled to read through the tears, my eyes blurry, words swimming when they talked about him surviving a knife attack from his own father. How Crow had pulled him off his mom and fought him as his dad had gone after Crow next.

How he’d been bloody and feral, kicking, screaming, and assaulting the police officers who’d come up the mountain and took him away.

How he stopped speaking after that, got kicked out of or ran away from every home he’d ever been in.

I read the same articles over and over again, unable to stop. Each word added another weight around my heart, pulled me down and made me ache, as I took that onto myself like I’d been the one to experience it.

It was often this way for me. I carried the pain of other people, carried it from my mom before she died, and now, though I didn’t live in everyone’s traumas, I couldn’t stop myself from drowning in Crow’s, while at the same time, strangely, being almost jealous of him. Not about what he’d gone through, never that, but that he’d escaped, that he was living on his own terms. Away from all the pain that never left my side.

Or hell, maybe he lived with it too.