Page 30 of Steel's Secret
EIGHT
SAINTS NEVER SLEEP
ARIA
The first thing I feel is the ghost of his hands, warm even in memory, like Isaiah touched my face before slipping away. For one suspenseful breath, I let myself believe he’s still here with me.
A half-memory stirs of the weight of him leaning close, his voice low against my hair, the brush of lips against my temple. A goodbye disguised as something gentler. Something almost tender. Something I’m not ready to name. It’s the kind of half-memory that shouldn’t matter, but it roots itself deep, pulling me back to last night.
When I open my eyes, the other side of the cot is empty. The blanket holds the shape of his body, a hollow warmth fading too fast. Isaiah’s scent of leather, smoke, and cold wind lingers, and it hits like the kind of longing I used to pretend I’d outgrown.
I sit up slowly, fingers tracing the warmth he left behind. My chest tightens with the kind of ache that feels like being found and abandoned in the same heartbeat.
When I swing my legs over the side of the cot, something slips from the blanket and clinks onto the floor.
A ring.
Tama’s ring.
I pick it up, heavy and warm, like it’s been waiting. The engraving catches the thin sunlight sneaking through the frosted window.Earn peace.
“Of course you’d do this,” I whisper, voice cracking. “You’d leave the one thing you never could let go.”
And somehow… leave it for me.
I clutch the ring to my chest, letting the heat of it bleed into my skin before I force myself to move.
My clothes are still scattered where we dropped them. My boots tipped on their sides, jeans twisted in a heap near the cot, my sweater tangled beneath his shirt. I dress slowly, like every layer is a reminder. The denim is stiff with cold, the sweater still carrying the faintest trace of him. When I pull on my coat, my breath hitches. Isaiah’s flannel is sitting next to my coat. I fold it carefully, press it to my face once, then tuck it into my bag instead of leaving it behind. I lace my boots with shaking fingers, the world already creeping back in, already stealing the quiet night we carved out of the storm.
When I finally stand, I close my fist around the ring again. A promise. A burden. A memory I’m not ready to give back.
The world outside is painfully bright when I open the garage door. Fresh snow glitters across the hills, untouched except for a single line of footprints leading away, already fading like he couldn’t let the storm take me, but couldn’t stay either.
I follow them with my eyes until the wind swallows the last trace of him. He left me his grief. He left me his hope. He left me the decision of what to do with both.
By the time the roads reopen, I’m packed, layered, and pretending I’m composed. The ring sits in my palm the whole drive back, warm, like it remembers his skin.
The closer I get to the city, the more everything feels wrong. The skyline rises cold and unfamiliar. Cars hiss through slush. People move fast, loud, untouched by storms or Saints or the things we bury under snow.
When I push through the office doors, the blast of fluorescent light and recycled air almost knocks the breath out of me. Leah spots me instantly, leaning on my desk with her latte like she’s been waiting to pounce.
“Well…” she says slowly. “Someone looks like she just got back from either a crime scene or a very good night.”
I was prepared for this, or at least I thought I was. Turns out I’m a terrible liar today.
“I got snowed in,” I say, dropping my bag on my desk.
“With who?” she shoots back instantly.
“No one.”
Leah’s eyebrows climb. “Try that again. This time without holding that thing like it’s a live grenade.”
I look down. The ring glints in my hand.
Shit.
Her jaw drops. “Aria. Tell me that is not what I think it is.”
