My hands won’t stop shaking.
The alcove I’ve found myself in is barely more than an unfinished bay window, three sides of concrete framing the forest like a fractured portrait.
Footsteps sound behind me. Light and familiar.
I don’t look up.
“How did you know where I was?” I ask, my voice low.
Ellie doesn’t answer at first. All I hear is the whisper of her shirt brushing the concrete as she sits beside me. No ceremony. No hesitation. Like she belongs here, even in a skeleton of rebar and rust.
Belongs with me.
God, she’s so stubborn, even when I’m mad at her.
I glance sideways.
She has her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms looped around them. Her face is soft in the moonlight, the white creating enthralling flecks in her blue-gray eyes.
“I’ll always be able to find you,” she says simply. And goddammit, my heart stutters at those words.
I turn back to the page. The bodice is coming together now, an asymmetrical neckline with a single sculptural sleeve—bold, like her. The fabric will need structure. Silky frill, maybe. Bone white. Pure. Defiant.
“I’m working,” I mutter, though I find myself tilting the sketchbook closer to her.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, lifting a finger and hovering it over the design like she wishes to touch it, trace it.
“It’s not done.”
“Neither are we,” she tells me.
The words land with more weight than I expected. The hand holding the pencil clenches, my knuckles bleaching white.
I turn toward her incredulously. “Of course we’re not fucking done,” I snap, unable to believe the gall of her. “We’ll never be fucking done.”
Her lips twitch in the beginnings of a smile before compressing in a thin line once more. She nods. “Good.”
The silence stretches between us, thick with things we aren’t saying. Things we can’t say. The hotel creaks again—wood and wind conspiring to make this moment feel even more ominous.
I swallow hard and glance back down at my notebook, the edges of the page blurring.
“I keep thinking,” I begin, “if I can just make this dress perfect, it’ll keep you safe. Like stitches and seams will hold you together when the world tries to tear you apart.”
Ellie reaches out, her fingers warm as they brush mine. Sparks skitter through me, and I swallow convulsively. “I’m going to be okay, Beck.We’regoing to be okay. Landon already discussed putting a microphone on me or a tracker. Zane even said that he might be able to sneak you guys in as well, the way he did before.”
“I just need you to be safe,” I whisper, swallowing around the sword in my throat. “I can’t lose you, El. I won’t.”
She leans in, resting her head lightly against my shoulder. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I know,” she says. “But I’ll try. For you.”
The wind picks up again, tugging at the tarp above us. I pull her closer to me, allowing the sketchbook to fall to my lap. I need her in my arms.
The dress can wait.
7
