Page 117 of Before the Bond
The part of me that used to feel that knowledge as a reason to run — to put distance between myself and the thing coming, to get ahead of the loss before it could find me — was quiet.
The light was fully through now.
The pale gold of a Greyhollow morning doing what it could against the grey, catching the frost on the railing and the mist atthe edges and turning everything briefly brighter than it had any right to be.
Inside, Jake said something and laughed at himself. Donovan said his name in the tone that meant stop, but quietly, the way that wasn't quite as convincing as it used to be.
Caleb's arms didn't loosen.
I thought about Thursday. Stella at the bar, warm light and music, a night that ended the way nights out were supposed to end.
I thought about the photograph on the windowsill upstairs — my mother squinting into the sun, my father laughing at something I couldn't see. I thought about the ceramic bowl on the dresser and the book on the nightstand and all the small things I'd carried from city to city for seven years and finally put down in a room that was mine.
I didn't check the exits. I didn't run calculations. I didn't plan my next move. It took me a long time to learn that some things were worth staying for. If anything, it made them all the more worth it.
Whatever was coming next, we would face it together. Our bond wouldn't break that easily. Not anymore.
That was a choice I wasn’t going to regret.
The story isnt over…
