Chapter Forty-Nine
Brooklyn
The rock wall curves inward, forming a hollow that most people would pass without noticing. It isn’t wide. It isn’t warm. It isn’t anything like shelter in the way the word is usually meant. But it’s deep enough to swallow us into shadow, to make us disappear from the open white glare of the ridge above.
We are seated far back inside it, where the rock is dry and the wind can’t crawl all the way in. Snow drifts at the opening, gathering in uneven piles, but here, inside, there is only cold stone and stillness. The air is sharp, but not deadly. Not with the heat we have.
The fire isn’t a fire. Not how you’d picture it. Boston and Caleb buried the embers beneath packed snow and small stones, the heat trapped so low it doesn’t show itself. No flame. No glow. No smoke curling into the sky to catch a hunter’s eye. Only warmth that you have to lean toward to feel. I have my hands near the rocks that shelter it, letting the heat seep in slow.
It’s not much, but it’s enough to keep fingers moving and lungs steady.
I can see my breath. The cold doesn't surprise me anymore. It simply is.
Boston sits near the entrance, his back to the outer world but his attention fixed on it. His posture is relaxed, knees bent, shotgun resting across his thighs, but there is nothing unguarded about him. He watches without staring. Listens without reacting.
Caleb stands to the side, just within the shadows. He doesn't lean. He doesn't shift. He is still in the way of someone who has spent long enough outdoors to be part of it. His eyes move sometimes, making slow, patient sweeps up and across the ridge line, searching not for shape, but for disturbance.
The mountain is quiet. The kind of quiet that doesn’t comfort. It feels like listening.
I sit opposite them, my back to the inner curve of the stone. It’s smooth in places, jagged in others. The cold of it seeps through the blankets beneath me, up into my spine. I am aware of it, but not bothered by it.
I am not numb, just… reserved.
Careful with what I allow to reach the surface.
A full day has passed since I ran. Since I heard his voice behind me—only once—and did not look back. Since I tore through branches, down ravine slopes, breath tearing sharp in my chest, legs moving faster than thought.
I slept last night. Not deeply. Not comfortably. But enough.
Enough to dream, and enough to wake.
The dreams were not memories. They were movement. Running. Breathing. Branches opening. Space.
Freedom doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it feels raw.
Boston breaks the quiet first. “You good on water?” His voice is low, steady.
I nod. “Still good.”
He watches me for a moment, not with doubt but with confirmation, and then returns his attention to the ridge.
Caleb shifts just enough to speak. “We’ll melt more soon. But we don’t want to keep heat running constantly. We move again before nightfall.”
His voice carries no uncertainty. The plan exists. They are executing it. I am part of that plan, not as someone to be carried, but as someone who survived and continues to.
I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders. Not for warmth. For grounding.
I don’t feel fragile.
I just feel… aware.
“He stayed close for years without being seen,” I say quietly.
Boston doesn’t turn, but I see the subtle angle of his attention shift toward me.
Caleb’s eyes pause on me, then return to the ridge.
I continue.
“He could stand in a doorway without making a sound. He could move across a floorboard without it creaking. He knew how to wait. He didn’t need to chase. He just needed me to know he was there.”
The hollow settles, not with heaviness, but just as though it is listening.
Or *someone* is listening.
“I learned to feel him before I saw him,” I say. “The house trained me for that. The quiet. The way the air changed when he was near.”
Boston exhales once through his nose. Not a sigh. A release of tension so tiny most people would miss it.
Caleb’s voice is controlled when he speaks. “And yesterday, when you knew he was close—”
“It felt the same,” I say.
But not exactly the same because this time, I was not a child and I was not waiting, I was not staying still and hoping to be invisible.
This time, I moved.
“I didn’t think,” I say. “I didn’t plan. I just ran. And once I was running, I didn’t stop. Not until I found you.”
Boston’s jaw tightens. “You didn’t freeze.”
“No,” I say. “Not anymore.”
There was a time my body locked up if I heard footsteps in the hallway. If a doorknob turned. If breath came too close to my neck. There were years when silence felt like a trap that could close without warning.
Now silence feels like room. Like choice.
Caleb shifts, not in discomfort but in assessment. “Running wasn’t panic. It was strategy.”
“Yes.” I meet his eyes. “Because I knew how he’d try to follow. He doesn’t rush. He waits for paths to funnel. He expects me to hide in places that feel safe.” I look around the stone hollow. “But I didn’t go where safety was. I went where paths break. Where scent scatters. Where footprints don’t hold.”
Boston gives a slow nod. Approval, not reassurance.
“He’ll still be looking,” Caleb says. “But he won’t expect you to be here.”
“He thinks I’ll stay near roads,” I say. “Near places where someone might see me. He thinks I’d rather risk being found by strangers than be alone with the cold.”
Caleb looks back toward the ridge. “He underestimates what you know now.”
I don’t say anything to that and not because it isn’t true, but because I have already known it for years.
A long silence passes. It's not a tense silence, but a contained one.
Boston adjusts the shotgun slightly. “Jackson will find him,” he says.
I look up, not hopeful but certain. “Yes,” I say, agreeing, because Jackson does not hunt for justice, vengeance, or proof.
Jackson hunts because he loves, and love is relentless.
My hand rests over my stomach, not protectively or possessively, just in acknowledgment, a promise that forming something new is not weakness.
“He is not getting me back,” I say with as much conviction in my voice as I can muster at the moment.
Boston’s gaze meets mine, steady and rooted. “No. He isn’t.”
Caleb doesn’t turn when he speaks. “And if he gets close, we don’t run. We end it.” There is no dramatic weight to his voice, no flourish, just fact.
I nod once. I'm no longer afraid. I don't shake with fear or fall apart. Instead, I'm just ready.
The mountain wind shifts, carrying the faint sound of branches brushing high above. There's no sounds of footsteps or breathing, just the world continuing.
I lean back against the stone, not to hide but to rest.
I am not the child who learned to stay silent to survive.
I am the woman who learned to walk through silence without bowing.
I am not done.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
