Page 9 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
As I head for the door, she calls after me.
“Evie—”
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes the best stories don’t come from running. They come from staying.”
I don’t answer.
But the attic’s weight lingers in my bones all the way out to the sunlit street.
CHAPTER 4
AERON
There’s no outrunning the sea.
You can turn your back on it, sure. Let yourself believe it’s just water and tide and bone-deep ache. But it waits. It watches. And it always knows when to pull you under.
Much like a certain woman stalking the boardwalk with a camera pressed tight to her face.
I tell myself I’m here to work. To handle the vendor permits, check structural supports, and coordinate the final lighting rig.
But every time I turn a corner, Evie Bright is there—lean and stubborn, that camera strap digging into her shoulder, eyes sharp as glass behind the viewfinder.
She moves through the crowd like she’s mapping it—hunting the right angles, moments, and the perfect escape route.
Part of me understands that too well.
I watch from the edge of the main walkway, clipboard in hand.
She crouches low near one of the vendor stalls—Liara’s latest mural project. The boards blaze with swirling cobalt waves and arcane foxfire blooms, painted so bright it feels like the sea itself might leap free.
Evie angles her lens, tracking the patterns with clinical precision. But there’s something softer at the edges of her mouth—something unguarded when she thinks no one’s watching.
And that’s when she looks right at me.
A breath catches hard in my throat.
Gold-green eyes flash with something unreadable—anger, grief, longing—then shutter tight again as she lifts the camera and breaks the connection.
Before I can turn away, a voice like cracked stone rumbles beside me.
“Subtle as a gaff hook to the ribs, Thalen.”
I glance over.
Drokhaz stands there, arms folded, gaze flicking between me and Evie like he’s reading the currents. His tailored charcoal coat strains over his broad frame, black hair tied in a sharp knot.
“Don’t start,” I mutter.
His mouth twitches in a faint, knowing smile. “Just observing. You’re watching her like a storm’s about to break.”
“It already did.”
He grunts. “Then maybe it’s time you stopped standing in the wreckage.”
I scowl down at the clipboard. “She came here to finish business. That’s all.”
