Page 1 of Rook
Chapter 1
Avery
The rain started before Avery Brooks even reached the state line, a slow drizzle that turned into a relentless downpour as if the sky itself had been waiting for her to break.
She kept both hands on the wheel, fingers stiff, knuckles pale. Her car, a ten-year-old compact with a cracked dashboard and a heater that only worked when it felt like it, rattled with every mile. The wipers squeaked across the glass in a tired rhythm, barely keeping up. Her whole life felt like that. Barely keeping up.
She hadn’t cried when she found the messages on her boyfriend’s phone: pictures, dates, a hotel receipt. She hadn’t cried when her boss told her thecompany was “moving in a new direction,” and she wasn’t part of it. She hadn’t cried when she packed her apartment into boxes she’d scavenged from behind a liquor store.
But she cried now.
Quiet tears. Hot. Exhausted. The kind that came from somewhere deep, somewhere hollowed out.
She swiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater, but more kept falling.
“Get it together,” she whispered, voice shaking. “Just… get home.”
Home.
The word felt foreign. Heavy. Loaded.
She hadn’t called this place home in seven years. Not since she’d left for college with a suitcase full of hope and a heart full of denial. Not since she’d told herself she was chasing a bigger life, a brighter future, a version of herself that didn’t belong in a small town with small dreams.
Not since she’d left him.
Her chest tightened.
Noah Carter.
She hadn’t said his name out loud in years, but it lived under her skin like a scar. He’d been her best friend, her anchor, her safe place. The boy who walked her home after school. The one who fixed her bike. The one who held her when her parents fought. Who looked at her like she hung the moon… and never said a word.
She’d left anyway.
Because he hadn’t asked her to stay. Because he hadn’t stopped her. Because he’d let her go without a fight.
She’d told herself that meant he didn’t care.
She’d been wrong about a lot of things.
The rain thickened, turning the world outside her windshield into a smear of gray and headlights. Her GPS announced the next turn, but she didn’t need it. Her body remembered these Alabama roads even if her heart didn’t want to.
The closer she got, the more the town rose up around her like a memory she wasn’t ready to face.
The old gas station with the flickering sign. The diner with the neon coffee cup that never turned off.The sheriff’s office, dark except for a single lamp in the window. Mrs. Ellery’s house, still painted the same faded blue, still with the same ceramic gnomes guarding the walkway.
Everything looked smaller. Quieter. Like the town had aged without her.
Or maybe she was the one who’d aged.
Her breath caught as she turned onto Brooks Street.
Her street. Her childhood. Her ghosts.
The bakery appeared at the end of the block, dark and sagging under the weight of time and weather. The sign—Sweet Treats Bakery—hung crooked, one chain rusted through. The windows were dusty. The flower boxes were empty. The awning was torn at the corner.
Aunt Clara would’ve hated it.
Avery’s throat tightened. She blinked hard, but the tears came anyway.
