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Cal stopped at the door.
That soft, broken please did something dangerous to his chest that he was going to spend a long time pretending he hadn’t felt.
He turned.
She looked impossibly small in the big bed, the duvet pulled all the way to her chin, the bear crushed against her heart, thumb resting unconsciously at the corner of her mouth like a child who had never been allowed to outgrow the need. Her eyes were barely open, heavy-lidded and glassy with fever, but they found him across the room with the kind of fragile hope that expected a no… and asked anyway.
“Of course,” he said, voice low and steady. “I’ll be right here. Just rest, Sage.”
He crossed to the wide leather armchair he’d placed in the corner for nights exactly like this—though he’d imagined his own ghosts in it, not a shivering girl with a stuffed bear. The leather creaked softly under his weight as he sat. He pulled off his heavy boots one at a time, setting them down with deliberate quiet on the hardwood. Then he leaned back, the chair enveloping his massive frame.
The firelight danced across the high cedar beams overhead.
Outside, the storm pressed hard against the windows—sleet ticking against the glass like tiny impatient fingers, wind moaning low through the eaves in a sustained, mournful note that would have sounded menacing anywhere else. Here, tonight, it just felt like weather. Something happening on the other side of thick walls and warmer air. Something that couldn’t reach her.
He waited thirty minutes, listening to her breathing slowly even out into the deep rhythm of exhausted sleep. Then he rose—silent, whispering across the floor with the inherent experience of twenty years spent moving through darkness without being heard. He crouched beside the bed, close enough to feel the fever-heat rolling off her but careful not to touch. The infrared thermometer clicked softly.
103.2. High. Not yet dangerous. I’ll keep watch.
He returned to the chair, set a silent vibrating alarm for ninety minutes on his watch, and closed his eyes.
He didn’t sleep. He never really did anymore. What he did was hover in that suspended gray place—body heavy and resting, mind still running its quiet scans, hypervigilance turned down to a low hum but never off. He listened to the storm. Listened to the soft hitch and sigh of her breath. Let the long Montana night move through him like the cold moved through the pines outside – just data. Just facts. Just something he would track, manage, and protect.
When the watch buzzed against his wrist, Cal rose without a sound.
The room was wrapped in deep, living quiet. Firelight danced low in the river-stone hearth, casting slow golden ripples across the cedar beams overhead and the wide-plank floors. The storm still pressed against the tall windows but inside it felt miles away. The air carried the clean scent of burning pine, faint woodsmoke, and the warm linen of fresh sheets. Everything felt solid. Anchored. Safe.
He eased the fever reducer between her parted lips and held the glass of cool water to her mouth. She woke just enough to swallow—eyes slitting open, glassy and unfocused, one small hand releasing Shadow long enough to take the pill and the glass before immediately curling back around the worn bear. He waited until she’d swallowed, then gently eased the water away and tugged the heavy duvet back up over her bare shoulder where it had slipped off.
“Shh,” he murmured, voice barely more than a breath. “Sleep, sweetheart.”
She was already sinking again.
A few hours later, she cried out.
He was at her side in two silent strides, not touching, but close enough that his presence filled the space beside the bed. His voice reached her first, low and steady, the same calm rumble from the diner, from the truck, from the dark corner where she’d once held a knife.
“Sage, honey. You’re okay. You’re safe. I’m right here.”
She thrashed lightly under the duvet, hands twisting in the thick fabric, face twisted with whatever nightmare the fever had dragged up. Her lips moved—half-formed words, broken fragments from whatever dark place she’d fallen into. The fire popped softly, sending a spark spiraling up the chimney. Outside, the wind gave a long, mournful howl that made the glass tremble.
He didn’t touch her. Just stayed right there at the edge of the bed and talked. Low. Steady. Unhurried.
“You’re safe, baby. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Just a dream. I got you.”
Three minutes. That was all it took. The thrashing slowed. Her fists unclenched. Her breathing shifted from sharp, panicked little gasps to something deeper, slower, steadier. The firelight painted warm gold across her damp lashes and the dark tangles of her hair.
He waited until he was certain she’d settled, then checked her temperature again.
102.1. Coming down.
Cal stood beside the bed for a long moment not sitting, not moving. Just watching her in the flickering glow. She had curled onto her side, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other wrapped tight around Shadow. The space buns had completely collapsed; her hair spilled across the pillow in wild, dark waves, the lavender streaks catching the firelight and turning molten gold.
She looks so young…
She was young. Eighteen. The same age he’d been the first time he shipped out, when the world had still felt like something you could outrun or outfight or outsmart if you were just strong enough. She’d learned the truth earlier, and far harder, than he ever had.
The fire crackled softly, each pop and hiss sending tiny sparks spiraling upward like fleeting stars.
