I let go of a casual laugh to put her at ease.
“Come on, Wildcat. I see you getting ready to strike.” I strode the rest of the way into my room, set her things on the floor. Her presence was nothing but a stir that hedged me from behind.
Chaos and light.
When she still didn’t say anything, I turned around and took her by the face.
Kissed her deep.
A bolt of need punched through my body.
I pulled back to stare down at that stunning face. “Do you trust me?”
She chewed at her bottom lip before she admitted, “I’m scared of how much I do.”
“You think I’m not scared, too, Salem? That all of this isn’t fuckin’ with my mind? But that’s the thing about trust—it’s always a little scary to give. To rely on someone when we’ve only been relying on ourselves. And fuck yeah, baby, you are a fighter, a survivor. Fierce and determined. So goddamn beautiful you make my knees shake. But it doesn’t matter how strong we are, every one of us needs someone who is willing to fight for us, too.”
She reached out and scratched her nails through my beard, those eyes on me when she whispered, “What I’m really scared of is losing you.”
“Then stay.”
I said it like it was simple.
Like nothing else mattered.
“Are you two done kissin’ or what?” Juni’s little voice filtered from the kitchen and into my room.
On a chuckle, I took Salem’s hand and threaded our fingers together.
She looked at the knitting of our beings, feeling it, too.
The merging.
The meeting.
The way it was supposed to be.
I led her out the double doors and into the big main room. Juni had already made herself at home, digging through the pantry. “You ain’t gots much, Motorcycle Man.”
She said it with a disappointed sigh.
“How about we order pizza for tonight and we’ll get some more groceries in here tomorrow?”
“Don’t teases me.” Juni stared at me with her mother’s eyes.
My chest stretched tight.
Fuck.
I was done for.
I pulled out my phone. “No teasin’ to it.”
“Hallelujahs,” she sang.
“What’s everyone’s favorite?”
“Cheese!” Juni popped up at the countertop where I was resting on my elbows so I could scroll to my favorite pizza place.
I touched her nose. She giggled.
The hole Kennedy and Kye had left inside me felt fuzzy. An old haunting that I’d never quite shake. A blur that had begun to form into something else.
I slanted a questioning gaze at Salem. “How about you, darlin’?”
“Cheese is great, as long as we order a salad on the side.” She looked at her daughter when she said that.
Juni shrugged, so grown-up. “I gots no problems with the vegetables. Sheesh, Mommy, do you even know me?”
So much sass.
My head shook in amusement, and I punched in the number, set on taking care of these two the best that I could.
Only the blaring that suddenly screamed through the loft froze my fingers on the screen. The alarm was so loud, it was disorienting.
Deafening.
I heard it like a crash of lawlessness. A shearing of peace.
Everything seized for one shocked second.
Salem’s spirit frozen—frozen in terror—my heart frozen in the same.
Then she started to mumble, “No. No, no, no, my baby.”
Torment clouded her expression.
I shot into action when I realized it was the fire alarm from downstairs in the shop going off.
On instinct, I grabbed Juni.
The little girl curled her arms around my neck and buried her face in my beard. My attention shifted to Salem the second I had the child in my arms.
Salem.
Salem who was nothing but panic. Her face was a sheet of white. Like she’d run headfirst into a ghost that’d come to claim.
Her eyes filled with what I knew deep down she believed was inevitable—she thought she’d been discovered.
My own wounds throbbed. Curdled my senses into a wad of old disgust.
Bile rose in my throat, and I wanted to succumb.
But I had way more important things to protect than my past mistakes.
I grabbed Salem by the hand. “Follow me,” I shouted over the alarm.
The siren blared. Banging off the walls and amplifying. Blasting so loud it twisted the air into a daze.
The world in confusion.
Salem clamored along behind me toward the set of emergency steps that ran out the backside of the laundry room. I flung the door open and bounded down the stairwell that crisscrossed three times.
Juni curled her arms tighter and burrowed her face deep into my neck, like she trusted me to silence it, keeping her harsh, hard breaths silent, like she’d been taught how to hide.
All while I could feel the crush of Salem’s heart. The desperation in her steps.
I held them tighter, shouting, “I have you. I have you,” over the clatter.
We busted out at the bottom and into the waning day. Twilight hung over the earth, slipping behind the trees and casting the world in a kaleidoscope of golds and purples and deepening blues.