Page 120 of ICED
Maya meets my eyes over Lila’s shoulder. Her lip trembles, but she nods.
“Yeah,” she says. “We are.”
We eat our breakfast picnic on the hotel floor, Lila chattering about unicorn sleds and “the way Bear zoomed that man into the wall.” Maya laughs and wipes her cheeks with her sleeves.
After breakfast, we all lie back on the carpet. Lila sprawlsbetween us like a puppy, giggling. Maya’s fingers find mine where they rest on the floor beside us. She doesn’t look at me, but her pinky links with mine.
I squeeze once. She squeezes back. No words. Just breath and morning and quiet connection.
The start of something real.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MAYA
Iknow something’s wrong before we even get to the door.
It’s a gut thing. That strange, prickling awareness low in my spine. Owen’s hand tightens on the handle of my suitcase, and I see it in his eyes too; something off. He steps in front of me before we even reach the landing.
“Stay behind me,” he says, voice quiet but steady.
I don’t question it.
Lila’s tucked into the crook of my arm, sticky with sleep, her cheek warm against my collarbone. She hums softly, still caught in the drowsy afterglow of the coach ride. I want to hum too. I want to pretend this is just a normal night, coming home. But something inside me goes cold.
Owen pushes the door open. It sticks, as usual. Then swings wide, and there it is. The kitchen window. Smashed. Glass on the floor like slivered ice. Curtains flapping in the early evening breeze.
For a second, I can’t move.
I’m eight months pregnant again, standing barefoot in a flat in Newcastle, shaking while he screams in the other room, and a glass bottle shatters against the door. I’m holding a basket of folded baby clothes and thinking,this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t what I thought love was.
Owen’s already stepped inside. He checksthe rooms quickly; swift, efficient, controlled. He’s a mountain in motion, and somehow that calms me more than anything else. He calls out, low enough not to wake Lila, “All clear. No one’s here.”
But the damage is done. And it’s not just the glass. He sees it in my face when I finally step inside. The way my hands tremble. The way I won’t put Lila down.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
“Nothing else touched,” he says. “Just the window.”
Just the window.
But it’sneverjust the window. Not to someone like me. Not after what we’ve survived.
“Take her out,” I murmur. “Please.”
Owen doesn’t argue. He takes Lila from my arms like she’s something sacred and murmurs, “Come on, Jellybean. Want to see the stars from my truck?”
Lila nods, mumbling something about a moon sticker. Owen touches my wrist before he leaves.
“I’ll be right outside. You’re not alone.”
Then he’s gone. And I sink onto the floor, hands buried in my hair, knees drawn to my chest. I thought I was past this part. The jumping shadows. The spiralling what-ifs. The constant thrum of danger under my skin.
But I was wrong.
By the time I’ve swept most of the glass and checked for missing things, there’s nothing, I’ve folded myself back into that version of me I hoped I’d buried. The woman who lives in reaction. In hypervigilance. In dread.
Owen comes back up with Lila asleep in his arms. She’s clinging to his hoodie like it’s her favourite blanket.
