Annelly

I wake slowly, dragged up from shallow, fractured sleep by the quiet.

For a few disoriented seconds, I don’t know where I am—only that my body feels heavy, like it never truly rested. My muscles ache in that dull, bone-deep way that comes from tension, not exertion. From bracing for something that could come at any moment, but never quite arrived.

Then it all comes rushing back.

Last night.

James’s heartbreak.

Tyler’s disappearance.

My eyes snap open, my heart already racing, and the first thing I register is the empty space beside me. The sheets are rumpled where James should be, but the bed is cold.

My chest tightens.

What if he’s not okay?

The question lands hard against my ribs. I push myself up on one elbow, scanning the room even though I already know he isn’t here. His clothes are gone from the chair. His boots aren’t by the door anymore.

I press a palm to my sternum, trying to slow my breathing as the tightness spreads, curling inward, wrapping around my midsection.

James promised he wouldn’t run anymore. But the urge inside him to self-destruct still runs deep. I’ve seen it too many times—the bloodied knuckles, the hard edge in his eyes when fear turns outward and he burns it off the only way he knows how. Punching things. Picking fights. Moving until something hurts enough to drown everything else out.

After last night—after everything he said, everything he admitted, everything he took responsibility for—I can’t shake the worry that the silence finally caught up with him. That sitting with it all, with nowhere to hide from it, might have tipped him back toward those old instincts.

The image of him alone with those thoughts makes my stomach twist.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and sit there for a moment, feet planted on the cold floor, grounding myself the way I’ve learned to.

Deep breath in.

Then out.

Slow and steady, following the rhythm until my body remembers how to settle.

The cabin is still, wrapped in that early-morning hush where the world feels suspended. Pale light filters through the thin curtains, painting the walls in muted shades of gold. Everything looks deceptively calm, as if nothing has changed.

But everything has.

I stand and reach for my clothes, pulling them on quickly before heading to the bathroom to finish getting ready.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about what James told me last night. About how young he was when he took responsibility for Tyler. About the weight he carried long before any child should have to. About everything he and Tyler already survived—together.

And now Tyler is out there.

In danger.

Alone.

The thought presses down on my chest until it’s hard to breathe, until my ribs ache with the effort of holding myself together.

I’m familiar enough with Victor’s brand of justice to know he isn’t just holding Tyler for the sake of negotiating my return. He’s doing this to punish James—twisting the knife, knowingly or not, forcing him to relive every failure, every moment he couldn’t protect the one person he vowed never to fail.

And if they don’t find him…

God, I can’t even finish the thought.

Because I know what losing Tyler would do to James. I’ve seen how close he already is to breaking. How much of himself he’s holding together by sheer force of will alone.

That fear—for both of them—is what finally gets me moving.

The stairs creak softly beneath my feet as I make my way down, expecting the cabin to be quiet like usual. Empty. Or at least calm.

What I find instead is anything but.

It takes my brain a second to catch up, to make sense of what I’m seeing. The furniture has been shifted. Tables pulled apart and pushed together. Cables snake across the floor in deliberate, organized lines. Screens—too many to count at first glance—line the far wall, glowing softly in the dim morning light.

My steps slow.

Zeb stands near the center of it all, sleeves rolled up, tablet in hand, his attention fixed on one of the displays. Dominick is posted off to the side, jaw tight, arms crossed as he monitors a feed I can’t see. Both of them look alert. Awake. Like they never really slept.

The space looks nothing like a cabin anymore.

It looks like a command center.

“What’s going on?” I ask quietly, the words slipping out before I can stop them.

Zeb looks up at the sound of my voice, his expression softening when he sees me. “Morning, Nell.” He glances around, as if noticing the chaos for the first time. “Sorry. Should’ve warned you. We moved things around.”

“I see.” My eyes sweep helplessly over the screens, the equipment, the unfamiliar shapes and shadows as I swallow back the suffocating sense that the walls are closing in.

Zeb sets the tablet aside and steps closer, instinctively lowering his voice. “Since we agreed to loop in the FBI—and possibly local law enforcement—moving OTS resources here made sense, given the situation.”

My stomach sinks.

“Keeping everything centralized gives us more control,” he continues. “Faster response time. And,” his gaze flicks briefly toward the stairs behind me. “Having all of us here helps keep you safer.”

I nod automatically. Because of course. It makes sense. Logically, it’s exactly what should be happening.

Still, the weight of it presses down on me all at once.

Up until now, all of this had been housed in the other cabin. A physical distance that gave the illusion that things weren’t as bad as they felt. That we still had room to relax. To breathe.

Standing here now, that illusion is shattered.

What Victor has done is escalation. And this—this is the team circling the wagons. Closing ranks. Preparing for a fight I should have known was coming.

I swallow and force myself to keep breathing. To push the fear and the other unwelcome emotions back where they belong.

“Alright,” I say, because what else is there to say?

My eyes drift to Dominick. He still hasn’t looked at me once. He shifts slightly, like he can sense my attention, but his focus remains fixed stubbornly on his screen. The tension from yesterday hangs thick in the air around him—unfinished, unresolved—but I don’t have the bandwidth to address it. Not now. Not with everything going on.

My gaze moves back to the room, taking in the hum of equipment, the low murmur of machines, the quiet urgency vibrating beneath everything.

And then I realize what’s missing.

“Where’s James?” I ask, my voice too quick to hide the concern.

Zeb’s mouth curves in a small, knowing smile. “Outside.” He nods toward one of the screens. “He’s good. See for yourself.”

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