🩷DEPARTURE🩷

Chapter Five

I didn’t sleep.

Not really.

Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the ghost of his lips on my skin. Not in a haunting way—but in a way that made my body ache with confusion.

Outside, the woods whispered to themselves, the branches creaking like old secrets. Inside, the fire had burned low, casting a soft orange halo across the cabin walls. I lay on one side of the bed—stiff, guarded, half-covered by the quilt—while he slept a breath away.

Or pretended to.

“Are you awake?” I whispered.

His voice was a low hum in the dark. “Yeah.”

Of course he was.

Silence again. Long and loaded.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up,” I said, “and none of this will be real. That you’ll be gone. Or worse, that he’ll be back.”

He shifted beside me, turning onto his side so we were face to face in the dark. “Celeste... he’s not coming back.”

“Except he already has,” I murmured. “Every time I look at you.”

His hand moved slowly, sliding between us until his fingers found mine. “Then look deeper.”

I exhaled shakily. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“Making me feel again.”

His fingers tightened just enough to be a promise. “You’re allowed to feel,” he said. “Even if it’s messy. Even if it scares the hell out of you.”

“It does,” I whispered. “You do.”

“I know.”

There was something about the way he said it. Not an apology, but understanding. As if he knew he was a flame and I was all dry timber—bound to burn if I got too close. But God, I was cold. I’d been cold for years.

I turned toward him, slowly, until our faces were inches apart. “Do you remember the hospital?”

His brows knit. “I remember waking up and seeing you.”

I smiled faintly, but it didn't last. “You don’t remember what I said before you opened your eyes?”

“No.”

I let the silence stretch, then filled it with a truth I’d never said out loud. “I asked them not to revive you. I told them if you flatlined again... to let you go.”

The words were a stone dropped in still water. His body stilled beside mine. But his grip didn’t loosen.

“You weren’t you,” I added. “You were cruel and empty and I was so tired. And then... you woke up. And everything changed.”

“I’m not him,” he said. “I know I wear his face, but I need you to understand... I’m not.”

I reached up and touched the scar above his eyebrow—the one I hadn’t remembered until after the coma. “No. You’re not.”

He leaned into my touch like it meant something. Like I meant something.

And then we heard it.

A sound outside. Soft. Subtle. A crunch—like footsteps over leaves.

We both froze.

He sat up slowly, sweeping the blanket off with one movement. “Stay here.”

“No.”

He looked at me—barefoot, in one of his oversized shirts, hair still sleep-mussed—and something protective flared in his gaze. “Celeste—”

“I said no. If someone’s out there, I want to know who. I want to see.”

He didn’t argue again. Just reached into the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a gun.

A gun.

My heart stuttered, but I said nothing as he handed me a flashlight. Then he moved silently to the front door, the tension in his shoulders taut enough to snap.

When he opened it, the night was thick and humming. Fog curled low along the ground like it had secrets to keep. He stepped out barefoot, and I followed, my breath catching in the sharp air.

“Stay behind me,” he murmured.

We circled the cabin slowly. Nothing. No movement. No eyes watching from the trees.

Until—

A rustle.

He moved fast, gun raised, low to the ground. But when we reached the back of the cabin, the only thing we found was a piece of paper. Folded. Weighted down with a stone.

He knelt, studied it, then handed it to me.

The paper was damp. Crinkled. But the words, written in a jagged hand, were legible:

“You’re not who she thinks you are. But I am.”

I stared at it, my fingers trembling.

He took it from me, crumpled it in his hand, and said nothing.

But in his eyes, I saw it.

Fear.

---

The kettle screamed just as the sunlight spilled across the cabin floor, fractured by the slats of the blinds. I turned off the stove, poured the water over the tea bag, and tried to pretend my hands weren’t shaking.

He hadn’t said a word about the note since last night.

Neither had I.

Instead, we’d locked the doors, checked the windows, and lay beside each other like strangers who shared secrets instead of stories.

Now he stood by the fireplace, shirtless, running a hand through his damp hair. The cut across his ribs had started to scab over, but the bruises around it had deepened to a violent violet.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I stirred honey into my mug. “You’re quiet.”

He looked over at me. “So are you.”

“I don’t have anything to say that wouldn’t sound like a panic attack.”

A faint smile curved his lips, tired and thin. “Fair.”

I walked over and handed him the tea. He didn’t take it right away. Instead, his gaze dropped to my wrist—the one with the faint bruise from the fall I’d taken last week.

He touched it lightly. “Did I do this?”

“No,” I whispered. “He did.”

His jaw tightened.

I stepped back, giving us both space to breathe.

“I think we need to leave,” I said. “If someone found us out here, they’ll find us again. This place isn’t safe anymore.”

“I agree.”

“But that scares me more than staying.”

He sat down on the edge of the couch, cradling the mug in his hands like it grounded him. “There’s a cabin in New Hampshire. Remote. Off-grid. No paper trail.”

“You’ve done this before?”

His gaze lifted. “I’ve disappeared more times than I’ve existed.”

I nodded, even though it made my stomach twist. “Then we leave tonight.”

A long silence fell between us.

Then he said, quietly, “Do you trust me?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t know. But I believe you’d die to protect me.”

He nodded once. “That’ll have to be enough.”

By nightfall, the cabin looked untouched. Blankets folded, dishes dried, no trace left behind.

I packed only what I needed—just like he told me. No photos. No letters. No sentiment. Just clothes, IDs, cash.

A part of me wanted to look back. To soak in the warmth of the place that had almost felt like peace. But I didn’t. Because the lie was bleeding at the edges now, unraveling thread by thread.

He loaded the bags into the trunk of a black SUV that hadn’t been there this morning.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked, eyeing the plates.

“Friend owed me a favor.”

I didn’t ask more.

We didn’t speak as I climbed into the passenger seat. The leather was cold, the silence colder. But when he started the engine and pulled onto the road, his hand brushed mine on the console.

Not a claim.

A reassurance.

“You ready?” he asked.

“No,” I whispered. “But let’s go anyway.”

The tires crunched over gravel as we drove into the dark. Behind us, the forest swallowed the cabin whole, like it had never existed.

Ahead of us was nothing but road.

And the question neither of us had the courage to ask: what happens when the truth catches up?