The silence people feared? He lived in it.

In a small, borrowed room above the mechanic’s shop, he sat at the edge of the bed, fingers tracing the frayed corner of the notebook he always carried. The one with the name that wasn’t his.

He flipped it open.

A drawing. Pencil-sketched, rushed. A girl with sharp eyes and wind-blown hair.

Not Liana.

But close enough to hurt.

He hadn’t meant to come back to this town. Not really. It was supposed to be a stop—a place to disappear, like he’d done a dozen times before.

But then he saw her.

Liana.

So sure of her silence. So wrapped in pride, it almost made her untouchable.

Almost.

And he hated how much she reminded him of himself. Of the person he tried to bury when he left the last place… and the person he swore he’d never become again.

But she pulled at something old. Something raw.

Kael closed the notebook, shoved it beneath the mattress.

The storm rolling in would hit hard tonight.

And somehow, he knew—he wouldn’t be riding it out alone.