A familiar pinch tightened in my chest.
It was stupid. I knew it was stupid. Kazan wasn’t James. A man being gone for ten minutes didn’t mean I’d done something wrong. It didn’t mean punishment was coming. It didn’t mean anything.
But knowing that didn’t stop the old fear from waking up.
Then I heard something.
A low hum.
Not from the orchard. From the big barn at the edge of the property.
I went still and listened. Under the drip of the trees, there was another sound. A tool biting into wood, then stopping, then starting again.
I followed it.
The barn doors were half open. Light spilled out in a dull gray strip, and dust floated through it. I stopped just outside and looked in.
Kazan had his back to me.
He’d taken off his flannel and was wearing a sleeveless shirt, which left his arms and shoulders bare. Scars cut across his skin. Sawdust clung to his forearms. His tail moved behind him in a slow sweep, relaxed and almost happy.
He hadn’t heard me.
For a second, I forgot why I’d come.
Then I saw what sat in the middle of the barn.
It hovered.
I blinked, but that didn’t change anything. The thing was still there, low and sleek and about the size of a small car, except there were no wheels. Just a faint blue glow underneath and a hum that vibrated through the floorboards.
There was a bench seat inside. Small. Human-sized.
The controls were set low.
For me.
I must have made some sound, because Kazan went completely still. Then he turned.
His ears flattened. His tail dropped. He looked from me to the hovering machine and back again, and I’d never seen him look so caught.
“You’re early,” he said.
I stared at him.
He grimaced. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” I agreed. My voice came out softer than I had meant it to. I stepped into the barn. “What is that?”
He dragged a hand over the back of his neck and left a streak of sawdust there. “A buggy.”
“It’s floating.”
“That’s what buggies do here.”
I took another step closer. The hum got stronger through my boots. “You built a hover buggy?”
His jaw tightened like he was bracing for something. “It’s not finished.”
