Copper shook his head."She made it through but never came back."
The fragile thoughts that plagued him shattered instantly, leaving a rumbling ache in their place.He stared, waiting for him to correct the details, but Copper simply picked up the towel again and wiped his hands as if ridding himself of the memory.
Finn forced himself to speak."Why couldn't he leave?"
"Doesn't matter," Copper said."The veil takes what it wants.Gives what it wants.It doesn't let the men leave."
The truth of it settled deep in his bones.He'd always known Everstill was a trap—a loop, a cage, a place that held onto the men who arrived with a fist that never loosened.But hearing it confirmed, hearing that someone had tried and died for the chance, numbed what was happening to him.
Kallie wasn't his way out of Everstill.Knowing there was a chance of Kallie dying every time she traveled through the veil, he wanted her nowhere near the shadow seam.
He didn't want her to risk her life for a world that had already taken too much from her.
Copper turned back to the stove, relighting the burner with a flick of his wrist."Best not to think about leaving," he said."It only hurts."
"How are you able to talk about the past with me when the others can't even remember what they did yesterday?"he asked.
Copper picked up the wooden spoon and hummed, deliberately ignoring the question.He waited several minutes, then left, knowing he wasn't going to get any more answers out of him.
The restaurant door shut behind him.His hands shook as he processed the information.His mind raced with images he didn't want.Kallie stepping toward the veil, Kallie reaching for him, Kallie falling, Kallie dying.
No.
He wouldn't let that happen.He refused to let Kallie pay for coming here with her life.
And as he walked back toward his house, he accepted what he had to do.He would rather stay trapped forever than lose her again.
Chapter 18
Kallie
––––––––
The silence was thefirst thing Kallie noticed in the house after Finn left.Not the quiet of a home without a television or radio on, but the kind of quiet that pressed down on her until all she could hear was her heartbeat.
It was the kind of silence she'd grown up with, not from the absence of people but from the absence of being seen.A room could be full, and she still felt like the only one no one ever reached for.
