Page 23 of Make Them Cry
That hits harder than I expect.
Arrow brushes a hand down her back. “She’ll come around.”
Knight slaps me on the shoulder. “And until then, we make damn sure no one touches her.”
I nod, slowly, and look around the space we’ve rebuilt from trauma into protection.
The bed is made. The walls are cleared. The light bulb hums gently overhead.
River’s safe house is ready.
Now I just have to convince her to trust it.
To trustme.
Even if I can’t tell her what it’s costing me to keep my distance.
Even if I’m already falling.
Hard.
Silently.
And praying I don’t hit the ground alone.
SEVEN
RIVER
For the first time in weeks, I wake up without the feeling that something’s sitting on my chest. No new messages. No emails from fake accounts. No one whispering about me in the hallway—at least, not that I can tell.
Mason Reid is officially unemployed.
I still can’t believe it. One day he was swaggering into the office like he owned the place, and the next, IT walked him out mid-morning with a cardboard box and zero eye contact. He didn’t even glance my way. Just kept his head down while HR muttered something about “violation of company policy.”
Good.
He can go violate it somewhere far, far away.
I’ve spent months waiting to breathe again, and today… I finally do.
It’s almost unnerving how quiet the internet’s been since. No new comments. No pictures. No fake videos. It’s like someonefinally pulled the plug on the nightmare. I half expect an apology letter from the algorithm gods.
So when I walk into NovaPlay that morning, the sunlight actually looksgoldeninstead of apocalyptic gray. My reflection in the lobby glass doesn’t look haunted. Just tired, and maybe a little hopeful.
I drop my bag on my desk, boot up my computer, and make a silent promise: no doomscrolling, no crying, no spiraling. Just work. Normal and quiet.
And then Gage does something that short-circuits my brain.
He hands me the first cup of coffee.
No smirk. No taunt. Just… coffee. Steaming, perfect, in my favorite mug—the one he usually steals.
I blink at it. “Are you dying?”
He leans on the edge of my desk, casual as ever, like this isn’t the weirdest thing he’s ever done. “What, I can’t be nice?”
“No,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Not without an ulterior motive.”
