“No, you won’t,” Kimber mutters.
Berk looks over her shoulder, voice warm. “We love you, Kimmy. We just want you safe.”
Kimber softens instantly, melting back into Rowan’s side. “I know. It’s just… could you maybe look less like you’re hunting people for sport at school events?”
Ronan grins wolfishly. “No promises.”
Kimber throws her head back with a dramatic wail.
I pull out of the parking lot, laughter filling the SUV—not the kind born from survival or relief, but laughter that feels lighter. Restorative. Healing.
Berk rests her hand on my thigh, thumb stroking once.
She’s alive.
Kimber’s safe.
We’re together.
For the first time in years, the future doesn’t feel like a battlefield.
It feels like the beginning.
Ronan
It’s Friday afternoon.
The sun is out.
The pavement is warm beneath my shoes. Rowan, Emerson, and I are on the court in the backyard, talking shit and playing a sloppy, aggressive game of three-man basketball like we’re seventeen again instead of men with more blood on our hands than we ever expected to carry.
The ball slams off the rim, rebounds hard, and Rowan curses loudly enough that the neighbor’s dog barks. Emerson snags the ball out of the air; jukes left and tries to spin around me like he still has the knees of a teenager.
He doesn’t.
But I let him pretend.
We’re laughing.
Sweating.
Trash-talking like none of us almost died. Like the world didn’t collapse and rebuild itself around one girl.
And Berk?
She’s on the sidelines in one of Rowan’s old shirts, short shorts, legs folded under her, sunglasses perched on her head, cheering for us like we’re playing for a championship ring instead of bragging rights.
Every time she claps or whistles, one of us gets stupider in an attempt to show off.
Rowan flexes after every shot, even the ones he misses.
Emerson keeps doing trick passes he absolutely cannot land.
And me? I keep stealing glances her way every few seconds, still stunned she’s here—breathing, healing, smiling. Ours.
It’s been four months since the warehouse.
Four months since we almost lost her.