Page 143 of Property of Scar

Unbroken.

And for the first time since that night, since Astrid sliced my face in her rage, and I chose to keep it as a memory of her, the scar heals… and I finally let her go.

I find my way to the ridge, the one that overlooks the eastern tree line where the pines grow so dense the snow barely reaches the ground beneath them. The air is sharp, clean, and brutally cold, the way New Hampshire does cold, and I stand there a while.

Not thinking. Not not-thinking. Just existing in the quiet of a forest that doesn’t ask anything of me.

And then, quietly, with no audience and no ceremony, I say it out loud for the first time. “I’ll always carry you.” My voice barely disturbs the air. The trees take it and hold it, indifferent, patient. “But I’m living now… for both of us.”

The forest doesn’t answer.

It doesn’t need to.

Something shifts in my chest like a stone that’s been rolling for centuries, finally coming to rest at the bottom of a riverbed. Still heavy. Still there. But no longer in motion, no longer tearing up everything it passes through.

I stand there until the cold works its way through my jacket, and then I turn back toward the clubhouse.

On my own terms.

Back toward my life with Cali.

The vampire and the hunter.

Who would have thought?

***

I smell them before I see them.

Leather, motor oil, and the heat signature that belongs to monsters who have been alive long enough to stop faking their nature.

Raze, Wreck, Thorn, the three of them are occupying the back corner of the main room like they always have, like furniture that’s never moved.

They see me walk in.

Raze always clocks it first. His gaze moves over me the way a president’s gaze moves over a situation, fast, thorough, reading all the variables before committing to a response. Whatever he finds shifts something in his expression, subtle enough that most people would miss it, but I’ve known this man for centuries, and I don’t miss it.

“You look… different,” he says, clearly meaning that my face is missing the scar it’s carried for centuries.

“I feel different,” I reply.

Wreck’s hollow eyes settle on me from across the room, that gaunt face giving nothing away, the wendigo in him always watching, always measuring. Then, after a beat that stretches just long enough to matter, he says, “Good.”

One word from Wreck… that’s a speech.

Thorn says nothing, because Thorn rarely does, but the branch-lined angle of his jaw tips toward me in quiet acknowledgment, something old and steady recognizing something just as old, making a shift it understands. There’s warmth in it, the kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.

I pour myself a drink, blood-wine dark enough to pass for something else, and settle against the bar without feeling the need to explain it.

It’s a small thing, but it doesn’t feel small.

Raze comes over a moment later and takes up position beside me. He doesn’t make a thing out of it, ask how I’m holding up, or offer some bullshit piece of wisdom.

He stands there, looking out over the wreckage with me.

When he finally turns his head, it’s like he’s waited long enough for the dust to settle before deciding what matters. “About damn time,” he says finally, voice low, easy, but carrying weight.

I huff out something that might almost pass for a laugh. “That obvious?”