Chapter 126

The loft went quiet again after the laughter faded. Rook sprawled in the chair. Tannin sipped cereal milk straight from the bowl. I watched the sunlight shift across the floor and thought about all the parts of me that had changed. All the parts that had healed. All the parts that were still stitching themselves together.

I wasn’t that seventeen-year-old girl anymore. I wasn’t the girl who flinched at loud voices or dim hallways. I wasn’t the girl who believed love could be taken away as punishment.

I was building something new. With Torin. With Rook. With Tannin. With Reif. With Jess. With the life we had carved out of chaos and loss. Everything was shifting forward. Then my phone vibrated on the table beside me.

I reached for it absently, but when I saw the name on the screen, my breath caught high in my chest.

Burdock.

My past didn’t just knock on the door. It called.

~~

The sunlight had shifted by the time I ended the call. It stretched long and warm across the living room floor, sliding over the steps, across the couch, and up the far wall like it was trying to reach me. Or maybe I was just finally still enough to feel it.

Burdock. Coming here. In person.

I sank slowly onto the couch, my phone still warm in my hand. My fingers curled around it like it might vanish if I let go. Torin watched me from the small table near the kitchen, elbows braced on his knees, his entire body angled forward like he was one breath away from crossing the room.

“You alright?” he asked quietly.

I nodded once. Not entirely true. Not entirely false. “I think so,” I said. “Just…processing.”

Torin stood and crossed the space in a few slow steps. He lowered himself beside me and took my hand without speaking. I leaned into him, the familiar warmth of him grounding me. The world felt like it had tilted under me again, but this time it was not fear. It was memory. It was history rising from the floorboards.

“Burdock,” Torin said after a moment. “Did he say why he’s coming?”

“Not in those words,” I said softly. “He asked if he could visit. Said Ginger wanted to come too.”

Torin’s jaw loosened. “Ginger,” he repeated. “She always wanted to see you again. She asked about you constantly when I left the club.”

I swallowed, a little surprised by the sudden ache at the back of my throat. “She was the only woman in that place who treated me like a person,” I said. “She used to bring me food when Skye kept me working late. She braided my hair once after a fight broke out. She said I needed something pretty in a world that wasn’t.”

Torin’s hand tightened in mine. He stayed quiet for several seconds before he asked, “Do you want them here?”

“I think I do,” I whispered. “They were the closest thing I had to safe back then.”

He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “Then they come.”

I exhaled and rested my head on his shoulder. Memories drifted through me. The compound. The noise. The smoke. Skye’s booming voice that always made my stomach knot. Dillon’s sharp grin. The back hallway with its sticky floors and dim lights where I used to slip through like a shadow, praying no one would notice me.

Ginger had been a small, bright flame in a dark house. Burdock had been the quiet eye of a storm. They had been the only steady ground in a place built on lies and fists and unwanted expectations.

It was strange, though. Skye’s warning echoed again in the back of my mind. So did the letter. So did my mother’s smile in that photograph.

There was still something missing. Some piece that had not clicked into place yet.

Torin brushed his thumb across my shoulder. “What else are you thinking?”

I hesitated. Then I lifted my head so I could meet his eyes. “The letter said Skye wasn’t the only one trying to keep us apart.”

Torin nodded. “I remember.”

“I want to know who else was involved,” I said softly. “I want to know why.”

“We’ll find out,” he replied. “We don’t have to dig today. Not until you want to. But we will.”

His certainty wrapped around me like a blanket. A steady promise. A choice.

Reif wandered out of the hallway then, hair sticking up on one side, shirt twisted like he rolled straight out of bed and forgot how clothing worked. He froze when he saw us watching him.

“What?” he asked. “Did I drool in my sleep again?”

Tannin stepped out behind him with her arms full of laundry. She gave him a pointed look. “You drooled enough to drown a plant.”

Reif groaned and flopped onto the nearest chair. “Fantastic. Love that for me.”

Rook followed a moment later, eyes still heavy with sleep, and grabbed a drink from the fridge. “Somebody please tell me we’re not talking about drooling again,” he said.

I smiled faintly. “We weren’t. But thank you for the imagery.”

Reif squinted at me. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

Torin cleared his throat. “Burdock called,” he said. “He and Ginger are coming to visit.”

Silence spread through the loft, slow and wide.

Rook blinked. “Burdock?”

“The only one,” Torin replied.

Tannin leaned a hip against the counter. “Should we be worried or excited?” she asked.

“A little of both,” I said honestly.

Reif sat up straighter. “They’re good people.”

“They are,” I agreed.

Rook nodded.

Reif gave me a small smile. Torin squeezed my knee. Tannin nodded once, the support in her expression subtle but solid.

Family. A real one. A chosen one.

The pressure inside my chest loosened.

“Well,” Tannin said a moment later. “We should clean the loft if we’re having visitors.”

Rook groaned. “We live here.”

“Yes,” she said. “And it looks like it.”

Torin stood and stretched. “I’ll grab the vacuum.”

Reif pointed toward the hallway. “I claim dish duty.”

“No,” Rook said. “You always leave soap on everything.”

“That was once,” Reif argued.

“Five times,” Tannin corrected.

Reif huffed. “I’ll do…something. I don’t know what yet. Something helpful.”

They dissolved into chaotic bickering and mild insults that somehow sounded affectionate. I watched them for a moment, letting the noise settle into new corners of me. It felt good to hear voices that did not carry threats. Footsteps that didn't follow me. Arguments that did not end in bruises. Laughter that didn't hurt.

Torin walked back to me and held out his hand. “You good?” he asked.

I slid my fingers into his. “I’m getting there.”

He brushed his forehead against mine. “You don’t have to rush.”

“I know,” I whispered.

He kissed the corner of my mouth, soft and warm, then nodded toward the chaos in the kitchen. “Let’s help before they break something.”

I followed him, my hand in his, and felt something shift inside me again. Something gentle. Something steady. Something that felt like beginnings.

Burdock and Ginger were coming. Answers were coming. Closure was coming.