Aeris
The moment hovered — my breath tangled with Ronan's, our eyes locked, his presence wrapped around me like a storm just waiting to break.
And then I blinked.
Reality hit like cold air.
School.
The world outside this cabin of warmth and firelight and complicated comfort.
I pulled back slightly, just enough for his breath to leave my skin.
"I can't stay here forever," I said, quietly.
Ronan's brow furrowed. "What?"
"School," I said, sitting up straighter, slipping my hand from Silas's and brushing Kade's from my shoulder. "I'm going to be marked absent. People are going to notice. Teachers. Students. He's going to notice."
"You're not going back," Kade said instantly, sharp and certain.
I turned to him. "I can't just disappear."
"You already did," Silas said softly. "You ran. You almost died. And no one came looking — not yet."
"But they will," I said. "He will."
Silence fell over the room again, but this one was tighter, like a wire pulled between all four of us, straining under pressure.
"He won't hurt you again," Ronan said. "We'll make sure of that."
"You don't know him like I do," I whispered. "He's not just cruel — he's careful. He knows the system. He has charm when he needs it, tears when it matters, and the money to make things go away."
I stood, legs shaky but grounded, the storm rising in my chest.
"I show up at school, and there's a chance he'll be waiting in the parking lot. Or worse, already talking to a teacher. Making a scene. Painting me as unstable. The lost, broken girl who vanished. He'll twist it all."
Ronan moved to stand in front of me. "Then we stay ahead of him."
"How?"
Silas leaned against the table, folding his arms. "You go back. But not alone."
Kade stepped forward. "We take you. Every day. Eyes on him. Eyes on everyone."
"I can't have a security detail," I said, frustrated. "People will notice. They'll talk."
"Let them," Ronan muttered. "Let them wonder. Let them see you surrounded."
"That's not protection," I said. "That's exposure."
"Then we do it quiet," Kade said. "Shadow style. Subtle. Rotations."
Silas grinned, just a little. "It'll be like a bodyguard rom-com. But with trauma."
I gave him a flat look. "Seriously?"
"I'm trying to lighten the mood," he mumbled.
Ronan stepped closer again, voice low. "You do have to go back eventually. But you're not going until we're ready. And you're not walking back into that place without a plan."
I met his gaze.
It was steady. Grounded.
"You really think you can protect me? From him?"
His answer wasn't words.
It was the way he looked at me — like I was something worth defending with his last breath.
Then Kade's voice, from behind me, low and dangerous.
"If he even looks at you wrong again," he said, "he won't walk away from it."
I didn't trust the world.
Didn't trust the school, the system, the cold buildings that had always ignored the girl with the bruises.
But I was starting to believe in them.
And that scared me more than anything.
Because if I let myself fall…
Would they really catch me?