All Chapters of Torin-Shattered: Way Down We Go (Part 1): Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

I watched Reif go, a knot loosening in my chest. Another kid lost and found. Another piece of this strange new life settling into place.The bell chimed again as he left. I stood there a long moment, staring at the empty doorway, thinking about the way life kept handing me people I never asked for but ended up fighting like hell to keep.Reifer wasn’t the same kid who had left the compound. But he wasn’t gone anymore either.Reif had stayed longer than I knew he’d planned to, which didn’t surprise me. Once he’d stepped inside Montaro Construction, once he’d seen familiar faces, he’d changed. His shoulders dropped, his voice slowed, his eyes stopped darting to the exits. He fit here the way he had always fit at the Ravens clubhouse: like a stray kid who carved a place for himself without asking permission.Rook grabbed the second coffee and shoved it into Reif’s hand. “Drink,” he ordered. “You look like you slept in a ditch.”Reif smirked and took a sip. “I didn’t sleep in a ditch,” he

Later, when the noise finally settled, when everyone drifted into their own conversations, Reif looked at me across the room. His expression softened.“Thanks for letting me come back into your world,” he said.I smiled. “You were always welcome.”He nodded once, then glanced around the loft, the kitchen table, the worn couch, the people sprawled across it.“This feels like home,” he said.“It is,” I replied. And it was. Because some families are built from blood. And some are built from choosing each other, over and over again.Reif was asleep on the pullout in the corner, one arm flung over his eyes, the sheet kicked halfway to the floor, his boots tossed beside the bed like he had dropped wherever he landed. The kid slept like he had not slept in weeks. Maybe months. Jess came by at dawn to check on him, then left shaking his head when Reif did not even stir.Rook sat at the kitchen counter drinking coffee with the slow, satisfied posture of someone who finally had a piece of good

Rook squeezed my shoulder. “You remember her now,” he said quietly. “In the ways that matter.”Torin sat on my other side, his knee brushing mine, his hand resting at the back of my neck. His voice dipped low, meant just for me. “You’re allowed to feel all of this. You’re allowed to grieve her. Even if she wasn’t in your life, she was part of you.”The room felt too small for all the emotion inside me, yet big enough that no part of me hit the walls. Safe. Supported. Held.I looked down at the picture again. The woman smiled softly at the camera, unaware of everything that would happen after. Unaware of the weight her children would carry. Unaware that someday her daughter would trace the lines of her face through a rectangle of glossy paper and wonder what kind of life might have been.I brushed my thumb over the image and let myself breathe.The rest of the morning unfolded in a strange kind of quiet. Not uncomfortable. Not tense. More like the air itself knew we were all walking ar

I kept the picture of my mom close for the rest of the morning, tucked between my palms like it might dissolve if I let it go too long. Her face—my face—stared back at me with a strength that felt almost unreal. I didn’t have memories of her, not real ones, not anything rooted in my own mind. But looking at her now felt like standing in front of a closed door and finally seeing a sliver of light beneath it.The loft hummed around me. Quiet voices. The scrape of forks. The soft clink of dishes as Tannin rinsed plates while Rook argued from the couch that she was doing it wrong.Reif sat cross-legged on the floor, balancing his plate on his knee and pretending not to stare at the photo whenever he thought I wasn’t looking.Jess stood by the window, hands in his pockets, watching the street like he had something on his mind. He did. I knew he did.Eventually, I pushed up from the couch and walked toward him. Torin watched me go, his expression unreadable but warm. Ready, if I needed him.

The stairwell felt narrower on the way back down, like the walls were listening. The second note pressed against my hip through the pocket of my jeans, warm from the heat of my skin. Torin stayed close behind me, one hand on the rail, the other brushing the small of my back with each step, steadying me without saying so.When we reached the loft again, morning light spilled through the windows in soft ribbons, catching dust motes in slow, floating sparks. Jess sank into the armchair like it had personally betrayed him. Reif rummaged through a cereal box. Tannin leaned against the counter sipping coffee. Rook sat at the table with his feet propped on a chair he had no business claiming.Normal chaos. The kind that felt lived-in instead of dangerous.Torin closed the door behind us. “We should talk,” he said.Jess lifted a brow. “About the second note?”I eased onto the couch and folded the paper open again. The handwriting was clean. Intentional. Firm enough to belong to someone who ha