All Chapters of Storm-Worn Hearts: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

We drive back from the bakery in a silence so dense it feels engineered. Like the whole car has been sealed in a vacuum, every word a contaminant.Liberty sits behind me, arms wrapped around herself, staring out the window as if her own reflection might accuse her. Her bakery, her bright little kingdom of butter and vanilla, has been turned into a mouth that can’t stop screaming.Dawson’s hands never loosen on the steering wheel. Not once. Even when we stop at a red light, even when the road curves into neighbourhoods that should feel familiar, he holds the wheel like it’s the only thing keeping him from becoming something else.Kellan’s truck stays ahead of us, steady and unhurried, as if calm can be contagious. Miles’ car is behind. We are a strange procession through sleeping streets: not a parade, not a funeral, something in between. A convoy of people who have learned that safety is not a place you arrive, but a thing you keep rebuilding with your own hands.When Dawson pulls int

The hospital parking garage is a place built for forgetting. Concrete. Fluorescent light. Painted arrows that tell you where to go, as if direction can be that simple. People come here to shed the weight of rooms where bodies break, to step into their cars and become ordinary again. I stand beside my car while Cruz holds the sealed evidence bag, Liberty Crumbs printed in bright, cheerful pink, like it’s radioactive. I can’t stop seeing that logo. It’s too innocent for what it’s being used to say: I can touch what you love. I can make it mine. Dawson’s presence is close enough to feel in my bones. He’s quiet, contained, eyes scanning the corners without letting his head move too much. His restraint is a living thing. It paces inside him. Cruz speaks into his radio. “Security to Patel. We’ve got additional evidence recovered from Dr. Vale’s vehicle. Unknown number texting active threats.” Mr. Patel arrives with Detective Carv

The world at five in the morning is a half healed wound. Streetlights still burn, stubborn and lonely, but the horizon has begun to pale. I drive with both hands on the wheel and my pulse in my throat, the earpiece tucked into my right ear like a secret I can’t afford to drop. Carver’s voice is a low current. “You’re doing good, Mia. Two minutes out. Remember park, stay in the vehicle, doors locked.” Kellan follows three blocks behind me, far enough to be invisible to anyone watching me, close enough that my bones believe I’m not abandoned. That’s the thing about fear: it’s not rational, but it is literal. It wants bodies nearby. It wants light. I think of Dawson’s arms around me in the kitchen, crushing and shaking with restraint. I’ll stay, he’d said, like it cost him something vital. I breathe in slow, like I’m scrubbing in for surgery. Like if, I can control the air, I can control the outcome. The municip

I wake up with the taste of steam still in my mouth. Not literal, nothing so simple. It’s the memory of warmth and water and the way Dawson’s hands held me like I was both precious and real. The kiss is there the moment I open my eyes, waiting in the air like perfume you can’t outrun. And then I remember where I am. His room. His bed. His house still humming with locks and cameras and other people sleeping down the hall because of the danger following us. Beside me, Dawson sleeps on his back, one forearm thrown over his eyes as if he had to block out light even in the dark. His breathing is slow, real sleep, the kind I’ve watched him miss for weeks. His mouth is slightly parted, his jaw unclenched, and something inside my chest aches with a tenderness so sharp it feels like a blade turned inward. I shouldn’t move. If I move, I’ll wake him. If I wake him, we’ll have to deal with whatever happened last night. So, of course, I

Morning in Dawson’s house feels like living inside a held breath. The coffee pot hisses. The refrigerator hums. Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard complains softly, Jace, probably, roaming like a restless ghost with a stomach and no patience. The whole place is awake, but none of us are resting. We’re simply vertical. And I. God, I am aware of Dawson in a way that makes my skin feel too thin. Not because he’s doing anything. Because he’s not. No touch when he passes behind me. No casual brush of fingers. No kiss stolen in a doorway. Just his presence, measured and careful, as if he’s afraid that if he acts like last night mattered, the world will punish us for it. Or maybe he’s afraid I will. I stand at the sink pretending to rinse a mug that’s already clean, watching the pale light gather on the backyard like it’s ashamed to arrive after everything. The pool steams faintly, a quiet reminder of heat and