Page 7 of One Impossible Moment
Her cheek throbbed with heat.Her heart pounded.
She hated it here.Why couldn't she have a normal family?A normal life.
Between slow breaths, a memory rose so vividly it stole the air from her lungs.A road.A shift in the air.A town.Dangerous men.Her head ached.They weren't all dangerous.There was one man who didn't scare her at all.
Finn.
She hadn't thought about him in months.Maybe longer.But now the memory hit her like a wave.He'd looked at her in curiosity, not like she was a burden or a problem, but like she was a person.
She closed her eyes.
She wished she could go back.
But she wasn't in the same town anymore.That road she'd traveled was miles away from here.She pressed her palms to her eyes, fighting back the sting.There was no way to find the road again, even if she could travel.She was young when she met Finn.But she remembered how the air had changed.How the world had shifted.How Finn had spoken in a deep, rough voice.
Their conversation hadn't lasted long before she walked back to her foster home.She couldn't even remember what they talked about.All she could remember was the way he'd made her feel.
And standing there behind the foster house, cheek burning from the slap and heart aching, she whispered, "I want to go back to Finn."
The trees didn't answer.The air still flowed.The world stayed stubbornly normal.But the longing to leave stayed with her.
Somewhere out there, a place existed that would make her feel better.
And she would find a way back.
Chapter 4
Finn
––––––––
At seven in the morning, Everstill was calm and silent.That kind of quiet that feels unnatural.Finn stepped onto the porch of the house he'd claimed upon his arrival in town and looked down the street.
Everything looked the same.
He headed toward the general store.Each step of his boots echoed off the empty buildings.A few men were already awake, going through their routines like ghosts trapped in bodies that refused to die.
