Chapter Forty
Brooklyn
The hollow beneath the uprooted tree is dark, damp, and too small for two people, but neither of us moves. The forest outside feels sharp and listening. One wrong sound could give us away.
Caleb sits close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his arm, even though we’re not touching.
My voice is barely a whisper.
“How do you know him?”
For a long moment, Caleb says nothing. Not like he’s hiding something — like he’s choosing how to say it.
“I’ve been following him,” he answers finally. “For years. Before anyone believed there was something to follow.”
I turn toward him, heart pounding. “Why?”
He swallows, jaw tightening.
“My sister went missing. They found her near a lake just outside Alamosa. They said it was an accident. That she probably—” his words catch, like they hurt coming out, “—got herself into the wrong situation.”
I know what they meant.
People always talk like that about women who don’t fit their idea of innocence.
I whisper, “I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t nod. Doesn’t look away.
Just continues.
“Then it happened again. And again.”
His voice is low. Controlled.
“Women disappearing. Women no one made a search party for. Women people assumed wouldn’t be missed.”
But Caleb missed his.
A hollow opens inside my chest.
“I kept track,” he says quietly. “Dates. Distances. Patterns. Every body was found near water. Every time, the police said it was random. Coincidence.”
My throat feels tight.
“But it wasn’t,” I finish for him, wondering if Jackson knew anything about any of this. And if so, why he didn't say anything about it to me.
Warning me that such a threat was out there.
He looks at me — relief flickering through exhaustion.
“No,” he says. “It was him.”
The cold outside feels heavier now.
More real.
“He picks women nobody protects,” Caleb says. “Women nobody fights for.”
My pulse stutters.
He is *wrong.*
I am protected. I am fought for.
Jackson is out there.
Maybe his whole team is out looking for me.
Unless, he thinks that I left him—which I did—and he doesn't even know that I'm in trouble.
But I refuse to believe that.
I have to believe he's out there.
Looking.
Searching.
But the truth is sharp and undeniable:
I wasn't taken because I fit the pattern.
I was taken because I was different.
Because I was personal.
But Caleb doesn’t know that — and I don’t say it.
Instead, I ask the only question my mind can hold,
“How long do we have before he finds us?”
Caleb’s response is quiet.
“Not long.”
The roots above us creak softly as wind pushes snow off their tangled branches.
We are two fugitives hiding from something that should not exist.
I feel my baby move — just the smallest flutter — and press my hand to my stomach.
I survive for two now.
I run for two now.
I fight for two now.
And I am not done.
The hollow that we're hunkered down in is growing colder by the minute. My toes are numb. My legs ache. Every breath feels like I’m inhaling ice.
We can’t stay here.
Caleb knows it, too.
He shifts slightly, careful not to disturb the brittle needles or snow packed around us. His voice still barely more than a whisper.
“We need to move." He says, moments before I feel the warmth of something settle over my shoulders. Glancing back, I find his coat covering me and although I should tell him to keep it, I'm frozen to the bone and beyond grateful for his kindness and the coats warmth. "The water sources are farther north. If he’s sticking to his pattern, he’ll circle toward them," he finishes lowly.
My stomach twists.
Because I understand what that means.
“He thinks I’ll end up there,” I breathe.
Caleb nods once. “He thinks everyone does.”
I swallow. Fear tastes metallic on my tongue.
“What if he’s already ahead of us?”
Caleb’s jaw sets. “Then we stay unpredictable.”
I don’t feel unpredictable.
I feel exhausted. Frozen. Breaking.
But I nod anyway.
We crawl out from beneath the tree. The cold hits immediately, slicing through every layer of me. I bite down on a sound — pain, fear, maybe both — and stand slowly.
The forest is silent except for wind pushing through branches overhead like distant whispering.
Caleb scans the tree line, every movement slow and deliberate as he brushes his hands over his lever covered arms, trying to produce a modicum of warmth.
“We stay close to brush cover,” he says. “No open snowfields. If he looks down from higher ground, we make small shapes.”
Small shapes.
Invisible shapes.
We start walking.
My legs are unsteady at first. The cold has taken more from me than I thought. But I match Caleb’s pace — quiet, low, weaving between trees, staying in shadows.
My breath fogs the air.
Caleb checks behind us every few steps, and each time he does, my heart lodges in my throat.
I want to ask him if he sees anything.
I’m afraid to hear the answer.
The forest stretches ahead — endless, dark, watchful.
I keep my hand on my stomach.
“We’re going to make it.”
I whisper it to myself. Not sure if I believe it.
But needing to say it anyway.
Caleb hears. He doesn’t turn, but his voice comes back soft, “We are.”
Night falls faster in the mountains.
The temperature drops as soon as the sun disappears behind the ridge — not gradually, but like someone flipped a switch. The cold becomes something living. Something with teeth.
We find shelter under a cluster of pines whose branches sweep low to the ground, forming a natural canopy. Snow has less reach here. The wind is muffled. The earth holds a faint memory of warmth.
I sink to my knees, body trembling in a way I can’t control anymore.
Caleb kneels beside me. Not touching. Just present.
My breathing hitches. I pull the borrowed coat tighter around myself, and even though it's better than the nothing I had before, it’s still not enough. My chest feels like it’s collapsing inward. Emotion hits out of nowhere — heavy, suffocating, unstoppable.
“I can’t—”
The words break before they leave my mouth.
Caleb doesn’t tell me to breathe. Or calm down. Or be strong.
He just waits.
I press my hands to my face. “I was supposed to be safe. I was finally getting my life together. I—” My voice shatters. “I don’t know how to keep going like this.”
Caleb’s voice is soft — so soft it almost disappears into the dark.
“You keep going because you’re not alone.”
My throat aches. “I want Jackson.”
The name feels like a wound. Like a prayer. Like something sacred.
Caleb nods, gentle. “Tell me about him.”
I hesitate — then the words spill without permission.
“He’s steady. He always has been. Everyone looks at him and sees this… strength. But what they don’t know is that he carries everything quietly, so no one else has to. He doesn’t force me to be okay. He doesn’t need me to be perfect. He just… stays.”
My voice trembles.
“He would be here. Right now. If he could be.”
Caleb’s expression softens in the dark.
“Then he’s coming,” he says.
No doubt. No question.
Like it’s a fact written into the world.
My eyes fill. Not from fear this time.
Hope.
Raw.
Painful.
Fragile.
I lean my head against my knees, breath shaking.
Caleb shifts just slightly closer — not to touch me, but to share the weight of the moment.
We sit like that in silence while the forest settles into night around us.
Two survivors.
Two ghosts in the dark.
Waiting.
Somewhere in the trees — far, but not far enough — a faint, familiar humming rises.
Not close.
Not here.
But moving.
Searching.
He hasn’t stopped.
He won’t stop.
And morning is still a very long way away.
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