Page 74 of Yours on the Canvas

He can try to take him. But he’s going to have to burn the world down to get past me first.

18

Jack

I check the mail, before the sun is up, and that’s when I find the envelope. It’s taped neatly in the front of the letterbox where Silas’s security cameras’ wide-angle lens has a blind spot.

Just a plain, thick manila envelope with no return address. My name scrawled across the front in block letters.

JACK.

I head back inside, standing in the kitchen, my fingers already shaking by the time I pulled the flap open. Inside aren’t bills, or junk mail. It’s a stack of photographs. Glossy, recent prints that made the air instantly leave my lungs.

The top photo is of me, I’m standing at the register smiling at a customer, the morning light cutting across my face while I laugh at something they said. The angle was tight, zoomed in through the front window, shot from someone standing right on the sidewalk. I remember this moment, it was yesterday and it was one of our neighbours’ who had popped in.

Below that was one of Hale. It was of him at school. He was walking across the asphalt courtyard, carrying his binder against his chest, completely unaware that a camera lens was tracking his every step. The timestamp in the corner of the digital negative was crisp and undeniable.

Two days ago.

CJ and Silas had spent hours locking down the cafe and school. Setting up security that was water tight. They had told us we were safe. They told us nobody could touch us.

Looking down at these photos, I realise the cold, crushing truth: They were trying to protect a glass house with a hammer already swinging toward it.

Ray and Dale aren’t hacking our firewalls or systems. They’re old school. They’re walking the streets, sitting in parked cars across the street. They are right here in Campbell River, watching us breathe, taking inventory of our lives like predators mapping out their territory before the kill.

I bury the envelope inside my jacket and head back to Silas. Crawling in beside him, he shifts beside me, pulling me closer to him. His fingers flex against my hip, “Morning,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep.

I swallow hard. “Morning.”

He opens his eyes, blinking slowly, and the second he sees my face, his expression sharpens. Concern. Focus. That terrifying, gentle intensity he only ever uses on me.

“What’s wrong?” he says quietly.

I should tell him about the photos, but the word that comes out is, “Nothing.” I can’t look at him, because if I do, I’ll tell him. “I just have a lot on my mind,” I say, forcing the words out.

Silas studies me, eyes dark, searching. He knows something is wrong. He always knows.

He brushes his thumb along my jaw. “Baby? What’s wrong?”

I let out a heavy sigh, and look up at him. “I got a delivery.”

He sits up, grabbing my hand, ‘What kind of delivery?”

Rolling onto my back, I scrub a hand over my face. “An envelope. Full of photos. It was from Ray.”

“Where is it?”

“My jacket pocket. It had photos of Hale and me, at school and the cafe.”

Silas jumps up and I hear him running down the hallway to the kitchen. He comes back a minute later, envelope in his hand. Climbing back into bed, he sits with his back against the headboard.

I watch as he pulls out photo after photo. His expressions grows angrier by the second.

I freeze, every muscle in my body locked tight, my breathing hitches as the photos fall to his lap. Me in the cafe, gym, and walking with Finn. Hale, at school, arriving home.

Our every day lives documented in pixels and colour.

They’re watching, a voice whispered in the back of my skull, echoing my uncle’s cold, mocking tone.