Page 81 of Fractured Loyalties
“So what now?” I ask. “I go back to pretending I can smile through a trap?”
“No,” he says firmly. “You go back with me. You stay somewhere I can control.”
The words snap something small inside me. Not because he’s wrong.
Because he’s right.
And that terrifies me more than whatever’s waiting out there in the dark.
We pull up to the safe house just after ten. The lights on the lower level are low, warm, already on, like the space is waiting for us. The ocean is a distant hum, less a threat now, more a constant.
He parks but doesn’t move.
I reach for the door handle.
“Mara.”
His voice stops me.
I turn. He looks at me, fully this time.
“I won’t let him get to you.”
“I know,” I say.
But I also know this isn’t just about Caleb.
It’s about me.
What I let in.
What I ignore.
What I survive.
I step out of the car. He follows.
The door clicks shut behind us.
And I try to breathe like I still know how.
Because tonight, the line between fear and want is too thin to name.
The house exhales around us, like it knows the difference between our footsteps and anyone else’s. Every surface gleams with the kind of stillness that dares you to disrupt it.
Elias unlocks the panel in the hallway and starts running perimeter scans, silent, methodical. I hover near the door longerthan I should, my fingers brushing the frame like it could still hold meaning.
When I finally move, it’s toward the kitchen. I don’t bother turning on the lights. The glow from the hallway spills in just enough.
I fill a glass with water, cold enough to sting. But it doesn’t clear the knot in my throat.
Behind me, his steps slow. He stops in the doorway.
“You need anything?” he asks.
“Just a minute,” I say.
He nods, doesn’t leave.
