Page 18 of Hero Mine

And sometimes, it took a little tough love.

Bear smiled grimly to himself as he started his truck. Joy Davis had no idea what was coming tomorrow, but one thing was certain—she wasn’t hiding anymore.

Chapter6

Joy stared at the ceiling, the faint glow of the streetlamp outside casting shadows across a tiny bit of cracked paint in the corner of her bedroom. The bed beneath her was familiar—she’d slept in it for years. But now, it felt foreign. Like a place she no longer belonged.

She turned onto her side, her fingers gripping the edge of the comforter like it was a lifeline. Sleep had never come easily for her, not even as a kid. Her mother used to joke—half exasperated, half in awe—that Joy had been born running. Naps had been a lost cause before she was even a year old. Sitting still had been an impossibility.

Now, stillness was all she had. And it was suffocating.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will herself into unconsciousness. The exhaustion was there, thick and pressing, but the moment her body started to relax, the memories came clawing back.

Shouting. Hands grabbing her.Pain.

Her chest tightened, breath hitching as the darkness around her seemed to shift, pressing in. She forced herself to count—inhale, one, two, three—exhale, four, five, six—just like Bear had taught her when she’d been a kid and had gotten scared by a thunderstorm one time.

“You control your breathing, you control your fear,” he’d told her, his voice steady even as lightning cracked the sky. “Count with me, Bug.”

Bear didn’t know she did this every night. Didn’t know his voice, even just in her memory, was the only thing keeping her from drowning in the panic.

But still, the house creaked, and her pulse jumped, even though it was just the wind. Just the house settling against the November chill. She knew every sound this place made, had grown up with them. But now, each noise sent her heart hammering, every flicker of movement in the shadows had her bracing for something—someone—that wasn’t there.

The world had always been her playground. Fear had never been part of her vocabulary.

But now? Now, she lay awake in her own bed, in the home she’d lived in her entire life, and she had never felt more like a stranger.

She clenched her fists in the sheets, her body stiff as a live wire. The air in her bedroom felt thick, pressing down on her like she was buried alive. She knew this was irrational—knew she was safe, locked inside her house. But logic didn’t stand a chance against the voice echoing in her head.

Let’s see what that smile would look like without your teeth.

Her breath came in sharp gasps as she squeezed her eyes shut. No, no, no. It wasn’t real. Jakob Kozak wasn’t here.

But the words slithered through the darkness anyway, curling around her like a noose.

You know your smile would have made a wonderful trophy. It is such a shame to see it wasted on a corpse.

Joy slapped her hands over her ears, pressing hard enough to hurt. But it didn’t help. The voice didn’t come from the outside. It lived in her now, burrowed deep, like a parasite feeding on every ounce of confidence she’d ever had.

It didn’t matter that the voice belonged to a dead man. Her mind kept him alive.

“Stop,” she whispered, the sound barely audible even in the silent room. “Please stop.”

A strangled sob clawed its way up her throat. She couldn’t do this. She’d been trying for a month, trying to force herself back into this house, back into some semblance of normal. She’d plastered on fake smiles, laughed in all the right places, made everyone believe she was fine.

She wasn’t fine.

But she had to find a way to sleep here inside her house. She had to find a way to be okay. Winter was coming—it was already cold outside—and her current situation wasn’t sustainable.

The thermometer outside her window had read thirty-eight degrees when she’d gotten home tonight. Not cold enough for snow, but cold enough to be damned uncomfortable in a place not built to keep out the elements.

She needed to stay inside her house. But a few minutes later, skin clammy and tremors shaking her whole body, she gave up. She couldn’t stay in the bed any longer.

Maybe, like when she was a kid, it was about wearing herself out. She dropped onto the floor and started doing push-ups, ignoring the ache in her shoulder where it had been dislocated. One. Two. Three. Her arms quivered with each rep, the muscles protesting.

“Come on,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Keep going.”

Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

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