Page 25 of Protector of Talon Mountain

She nods, but her gaze doesn’t lift from the lock. Her fingers hover there like she wants to keep them busy. Like the stillness is suddenly too loud.

“You saw the note,” she says quietly.

I nod. “I did.”

She swallows. “It’s not the first.”

That lands with weight I wasn’t expecting. “You said it was nothing.”

“It felt safer to pretend.”

I study her, every line in her face, the edges of her fear hidden under practiced calm. “Safer for whom?”

She doesn’t answer.

“I need the truth, Sadie.”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean eventually. I mean now.”

Her shoulders draw tighter. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is,” I say, my tone sharpening. “You either trust me, or you don’t.”

Her head lifts then. Eyes locked on mine, fierce despite the tremble I saw seconds ago. “You think it’s about trust?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t need another man telling me what I owe him,” she says, voice low and steady. “Even if he’s wearing a badge.”

I nod slowly. “Good. Because I don’t need you to owe me anything. I need you alive.”

She looks away, jaw clenched.

I don’t crowd her. Don’t reach for her. I’ve pushed enough for one night. But the tension between us is thicker now. Hotter. Like a wire strung too tight.

“You’re not the only one carrying damage, Sadie,” I say, voice softer now, more steel than smoke. “I just don’t let mine walk with me every minute of every day.”

She flinches, just barely. But she doesn’t step back. She unlocks the deadbolt and cracks the door open, allowing me to exit. She doesn’t close the door.

I turn before she can answer. Move down the steps, boots crunching gravel. I don’t look back until I hit the edge of the street and glance over my shoulder.

She’s still standing there in the doorway—one hand resting against the edge of the door. Her silhouette framed in the soft light from behind.

Watching me. Waiting. And then finally closing the door with the almost inaudible sound of the deadbolt being relocked. I file it all away—the tremble, the fight, the part of her that still opens the door. Because whoever left that note thinks they’re scaring her into silence.

They’re wrong. She’s not breaking. She’s waking up. And whoever they are? They just made the list of wrongs I mean to right.

6

SADIE

Iwake before the alarm. The sky outside is still black, the kind of quiet that settles over Glacier Hollow when the wind forgets to breathe. My fingers twitch under the blanket, and I know before I open my eyes that I’m not going back to sleep.

Zeke. That’s what fills my head first. Not cinnamon rolls. Not the checklist taped to the café fridge. Him. The way he stood beside me on the porch last night, arms crossed, calm and solid as stone. The way his voice wrapped around mine like a promise I didn’t want to need.

‘You’re not alone anymore.’

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