Page 158 of Jax
Sully was already moving. I didn’t hear him, but I felt him. The shift of air as he knelt beside us, solid and steady as always. “Let me,” he said quietly.
Violet didn’t fight it. She let him lift her without a word, limbs limp with exhaustion, head resting against his chest. Her fingers clung to my shirt until the last possible moment, reluctant to let go.
I followed close. Close enough to catch her if she faltered, close enough to remind her she wasn’t alone. My hands hovered at her back, her wrist, her sleeve—never quite touching, but always there. She didn’t look up, didn’t speak, but I watched the way her spine softened when I drew near. A small, quiet knowing that someone was still beside her.
Carrick stood at the door, shoulder to the frame like he could hold the house steady by will alone. He didn’t speak. Justlooked at me, then at Violet, and something passed through his expression—unguarded, quiet. Not triumph. Not relief. Something closer to awe.
We stepped inside, and the house shifted around us. Not with sound, but with the stillness that comes when something long-lost finds its way back. It felt like the walls exhaled. The quiet wasn’t heavy now; it was warm. Intentional. No rushed footsteps. No slammed doors. No voices scrambling to fill the silence. Just breath and peace. The soft sound of furniture shifting, blankets being opened, the house itself remembering how to make space for the broken.
Maddy moved with quiet urgency, hair wild, face bare, tossing throws across the couch with the kind of practiced care that needed no explanation. She didn’t look at me, but her body said it all.We’ve got her. You can let go.Bellamy brushed past, turned up the thermostat, her fingers trailing along the wall like she was blessing the house as she went.
Sully lowered her onto the couch and tucked her gently into the nest Maddy had prepared. She barely made a dent in the cushions, but the room shifted around her anyway. She didn’t move much, arms wrapped tight around her ribs, hands tucked into her jacket like she was holding herself together from the inside out. Legs curled in. Shoulders hunched. Eyes half-lidded and wary, as if softness was something she didn’t trust to stay.
Without a word, Sully adjusted the blanket past her knees. Maddy knelt on the opposite side, tucking another throw beneath her chin with the kind of tenderness that tightened something deep behind my ribs.
I reached for her without thinking, settling on the floor beside the couch, my hand slipping beneath the fleece to find her foot and resting there, light but certain. A quiet offering. She didn’t respond in any obvious way, but I saw a shift in her jaw,the soft release of tension that said she felt it. That something in her still recognized the shape of safety.
The house responded in kind. Movements slowed, reverent. The hush of someone in the kitchen. The faint click of the thermostat. The whisper of a blanket unfolding somewhere nearby. No one filled the silence. No one needed to. It had shifted—no longer sharp, no longer bracing. Just stillness with weight. Quiet with purpose. A hush that stayed.
Violet hadn’t spoken since we brought her in. She lay curled in on herself on the couch beneath layers of mismatched fleece, legs tucked to her chest, arms wrapped tight around her ribs, fists buried in the oversized hoodie like she was holding herself together by instinct alone. Her eyes were half-closed, not asleep, but hovering in that brittle space past exhaustion, where rest lingers but hasn’t been let in. Even her breathing was cautious, uneven in a way that made my own lungs ache.
Deacon crouched beside her, every movement slow, his voice the same one he used for skittish kids and battle-worn vets. “I’m gonna check your vitals now, okay? Just easy stuff. Let me know if anything’s too much. Seth, do you mind helping me for a minute here? I’d appreciate a second opinion.”
He waited for her nod, a flicker, barely there, before reaching. And even then, he moved as if she might dissolve beneath his touch. Seth joined Deacon, kneeling on the floor beside him, and they got to work. The cuff slipped over her arm. The stethoscope touched her chest. Every gesture was careful. Every breath was steady.
“Pulse is strong,” Seth said eventually. “Pressure’s low, but coming up. No fever. You’re holding steady.”
The words weren’t just for her; they were for us. For the room. For all of us pretending we hadn’t been bracing for the worst.
Maddy and Angela appeared from the kitchen and crouched by the coffee table, a thermos in Angela’s hands, steam curling from the lid in soft ribbons, and a mug in Maddy’s. They didn’t speak right away. Just knelt there and let Violet see them. Let her choose the moment.
“Hot chocolate,” Maddy said finally, voice calm and sure. “Marshmallows. It’s probably too sweet, but that’s the point. You don’t have to drink it now.”
She placed it gently on the table and backed away. No pressure. No coaxing. Just presence.
Niko followed, silent as a shadow, a banana and a pack of saltines balanced in one hand. He moved like the air around Violet was delicate, like respect could be physical. He set the food beside the thermos and stepped back with a quiet care that felt like a vow. He didn’t speak, but the way he moved said everything that needed saying.
Bellamy was the last to enter. She swept in with her usual calm, tossed a pair of socks into my lap without looking up from the book she’d already cracked open, and dropped into the armchair like it had always been hers. “I figured matching was too ambitious,” she said, flipping a page. “But they’re warm.”
I looked down. One sock was purple with cartoon sheep. The other was red with tacos. I smiled, and the smile cracked something inside me, small, but real.
And then, soft and sudden, Violet laughed.
It wasn’t much. Just a startled sound that escaped before she could catch it. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide, as if she’d broken a rule. The instinct to hide it was immediate, familiar, and somehow more devastating than silence.
Carrick pushed off the wall with slow reluctance, arms still crossed, mouth set in that unreadable line he wore when pretending not to care. His boots moved like they had somewhere to be. His posture said otherwise.
He stopped a few feet from the couch, tilted his head slightly, and surveyed the room. Violet curled in fleece, Maddy with her quiet offerings, Deacon crouched like a field medic mid-triage.
Carrick exhaled through his nose. “Alright,” he said, voice dry. “Anything else you need? Food? Books? Netflix passwords we’ll later deny giving you?”
Violet blinked, brows pulling together like she couldn’t decide if he was serious, sarcastic, or both. Her eyes flicked to mine, asking without sound if this was safe—ifhewas safe.
I smiled and gave a nod. Small. Steady. Not coaxing or performative. Just a truth she could lean on.
She looked back at Carrick, something subtle shifting on her face. A flicker. A ripple. The quiet recognition that maybe she wasn’t on the outside looking in anymore.
Color rose in her cheeks, a faint but unmistakable mark of embarrassment. Suddenly, I knew exactly what she was going to say, and it made my heart leap with joy, even as it brought a smile to my lips.
