On paper, none of this works. In theory, I should know better than to want any part of it. And still, I see her at my kitchen sink, trying not to let her mother’s words get under her skin and failing only because she cares too much about proving them wrong. I see her at the inn, hands dirty and jaw set, dragging something broken toward whole with more determination than sense. I see her in the barn with Tabby, all her edges softened for one unguarded moment. I see her looking at me like I’m something steady, and I want to be worthy of it in ways I don’t know how to explain.
That’s the worst part. That she makes me want to be better at it.
By the time I finally head for the bunk room, dawn is still a couple of hours off, and sleep feels less like rest than surrender. I strip down to a T-shirt and lie on my back staring up at the underside of the mattress above me, listening to Beckett snore from across the room and the old vent rattle every time the air kicks on.
I close my eyes anyway. The last thing I think before I drift is that I need to warn Lark. That warning her means admitting exactly how real the danger has become. And exactly how much I have to lose if I’m right.
I don’t sleep long.
A little after five, the tones drop again somewhere deep in the station, dragging the whole building awake in stages. By the time I sit up, my neck stiff and my brain still somewherebetween exhaustion and adrenaline, the memory of last night comes back fast.
Lark laughing softly beside me at the overlook. The way her hand brushed mine on the drive back to the farm. The look she gave me before I headed back here to finish the shift.
I scrub a hand over my face and swing my legs over the side of the bunk.
Beckett groans from somewhere across the room. “You’re smiling again. It’s upsetting.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“Sure, Romeo.”
I flip him off without looking.
Chapter Twenty-one – Lark
Hadley does not ask. That should probably be the first thing I understand when she knocks once on my bedroom door and pushes it open before I’ve had time to answer. Morning light spills in around her, catching in the waves of her hair and the sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, and she looks like she walked in already halfway through the day while I’m still trying to catch up to mine.
“You’ve got twenty minutes,” she says.
I lower the sweatshirt I’m halfway folding and stare at her over the edge of it. “For what?”
“For the plan.”
“That sounds suspiciously vague.”
“It’s intentionally vague,” she says, leaning one shoulder against the frame like she has nowhere else to be and all the time in the world to wait me out. “If I gave you details, you’d start making excuses.”
“That implies I don’t want details.”
“That implies I know enough now to be right.”
I should argue. Instead, I look past her toward the hall, listening for signs of the rest of the house. It’s quieter than usual. Holt is on shift. That absence still lands in me before I can stop it, a quick, familiar awareness that leaves me annoyed every single time I notice it. It’s ridiculous how quickly a person can become something you notice in their absence. How fast silence starts sounding different when you know exactly who isn’t filling it.
Hadley follows my line of sight.
“He left before six,” she says casually.
I snap my attention back to her too fast.
Her mouth curves.
“That was not subtle.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“No.” She pushes off the frame and takes two steps into the room, reaching down to scratch Rook between the ears where he’s sprawled across the rug pretending he has no responsibilities at all. “You just looked like someone who wanted the answer and hated that about herself.”
I blow out a breath and toss the folded sweatshirt onto the bed. “You’re exhausting.”
