Page 144 of At First Spark
“No,” I say immediately.
Her eyes meet mine.
“Not everything.”
Something shifts in her expression then, not because of the words, but because she believes I mean them.
I press the cleanest part of my shirt against her arm before looking once more toward the open barn doors, toward the dark where Kenzie disappeared.
This isn’t random anymore. It isn’t intimidation. It’s obsession. And next time, I know she won’t stop at the inn. Or the farm.
She’ll come for Lark directly.
I check the cut again before pressing the rag back into place. “We’re done here.”
Her gaze sharpens. “The barn…my things…”
“Can wait.”
“It can’t—”
“It can,” I cut in, more forcefully than I intend. “You don’t stay out here after that.”
For a second, I expect her to push. Instead, something shifts in her expression. Not surrender, but understanding.
She nods once. “Okay.”
I help her to her walk, my hand settling at her waist without thinking. Rook stays close this time, quiet, watchful.
The walk back to the house feels longer than it should. The storm doesn’t let up, but something else has changed. Before, we were reacting. Kenzie isn’t circling anymore. She’s closing in.
And next time—I’m not letting her walk away.
Chapter Twenty-seven – Lark
The house feels confined after the fire. Not physically. The walls haven’t moved. The ceilings haven’t lowered. Hadley left to go back to my parents’ farmhouse, terror etched in her eyes. The furniture still sits exactly where it always has, worn into familiarity by time and use. But something inside it has shifted, something unseen but unmistakable, and now every room feels like it’s holding too much.
I stand just inside the doorway while Holt locks it behind us, the sharp click echoing louder than it should. My arm stings where he wrapped it, the clean bandage tight against my skin, but the pain barely registers beneath everything else still moving through me. Rain continues to lash against the windows. The storm refuses to break cleanly, lingering like it has unfinished business.
Kenzie’s face flashes in my mind again—the way it caught in the lightning, that smile that didn’t belong in the dark. It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t desperate. It was deliberate.
Holt moves through the house with controlled efficiency, checking each window again even though we already did, testing the locks, glancing toward the back door as if he expects it to give under pressure. There’s a tension in him that hasn’t eased since we left the barn, something coiled tight beneath his skin that I don’t think he knows how to release.
“Sit,” he says, softer this time, nodding toward the couch.
I lower myself onto the couch, pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders even though I’m not cold. Rook presses against my side immediately, his weight grounding in a way nothing else quite is right now. He hasn’t left me since we cameinside, as if whatever instinct drove him into the storm now refuses to let him stray again.
Holt disappears into the kitchen for a second, then comes back with a glass of water and sets it on the table in front of me. His movements are precise, measured, like if he focuses hard enough on the small things, he won’t have to acknowledge the bigger ones.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
I glance down. I hadn’t noticed.
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t respond to that. He just sits across from me, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped loosely together like he’s holding something in place.
“What happens now?” I ask finally.
