Page 157 of Jax
With each inch the vehicle moved towards me, the ache in my chest sharpened. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted to believe. I wanted to be wrong. Because if I hoped, and was wrong again, I wasn’t sure I’d survive it.
The SUV stopped. Silence followed, heavy and electric. The air thinned. The porch shrank. The world narrowed to the stretch of space between that door and the possibility of her.
The driver’s door opened first.
Deacon climbed out slowly, movements heavy with exhaustion, his frame still carrying the weight of whatever had happened. He stretched, spine cracking, then scanned the yard like a soldier just returned from war—worn, but standing. The rear passenger door flung open next, and Sully burst out like the van had barely contained him, all elbows and urgency, too big, too loud, too full of motion.
But the seat behind him was empty.
My heart bottomed out. No silhouette in the glass. No shadow of movement. No Violet. Just the rest of the guys, exiting the vehicle with the postures of men who had just survived something harrowing.
Panic rushed in hard and fast, a dizzying, breathless free-fall into the place I’d been avoiding for days. I barely registered the second sound, the softer purr of a different engine. Another vehicle, sleek and quiet, rolled up behind the van and stopped. Black. Polished. Too official.
Quinn stepped out.
He closed the door with the kind of precise control that always meant the stakes were higher than anyone wanted to admit. He didn’t speak. Not to me. Not to the house. Just exchanged a few low words with Niko, too quiet to hear, but their posture said everything. No grief. No collapse. Just stillness. Braced.
Then Quinn moved. He walked to the rear passenger door of the second vehicle. Opened it.
And then she was there, stepping out of the vehicle on unsteady feet.
My knees almost buckled, not because she looked bruised or broken, although she did, but because she lookedreal. Violet. Alive. Moving. Breathing. She seemed smaller than I remembered, thinner and paler, wrapped in a police jacket too big for her frame, like it belonged to someone larger. Her hair was brushed but knotted at the ends. One sneaker, one hospital slipper. But she stood upright, blinking into the gray morning like she hadn’t seen the sky in days.
Then her eyes found mine. Unblinking, as if she’d been staring through fog and finally saw something worth holding on to. The connection didn’t crash; it blossomed. Quiet and steady. A thread, drawn tight across distance and time, reminding us that somehow, after everything, we hadn’t lost each other.
Neither of us cried. Not yet. But something between us cracked.
We ran.
Across the yard, through the breathless space between belief and proof, between survival and reunion, we sprinted towards one another. I didn’t feel the ground. Didn’t register the grass, or gravel, or the ache in my knees. Just the pull of her, of getting there before anything else could.
She hit me like a storm, and we dropped to the earth, folding around each other like lungs closing around breath. My arms locked tight. Her fingers clutched the back of my neck, shaking. She buried her face in my shoulder. Her whole body was trembling.
“You’re here,” I whispered, voice breaking as the tears finally came. “You’re here. You’re here. You’re here.”
And then, soft as breath, her voice reached through the space between us—smaller than I remembered, frayed at the edges but unmistakably hers.
“I didn’t know if you were real anymore.”
I held her like she was. Like she was the last real thing left. My hands clenched the back of her jacket, fingers locked in the fabric like I could keep time from moving if I just didn’t let go. Her ribs moved against mine in a shallow rhythm. My body curled around hers without thought, instinctive and absolute, as if it had always known this shape. There was no fear between us anymore. Only the quiet miracle of something fractured remembering how to hold itself together again.
She stayed. And I stayed with her.
Even as silence gathered thick and reverent. Even as the others kept their distance to give us space. I didn’t loosen my grip. My forehead rested against hers, the damp of her hair seeping into my skin, and I held on like letting go might dissolve the moment entirely. I didn’t need the world to turn. I just needed her to stay real in my arms.
But then she started to shiver, a creeping tremble that traveled from her shoulders downwards, pulling what little strength she had left from her bones. Her fingers twitched against my sides. And when I finally leaned back to look at her, I saw it. That distant haze behind her eyes.
I knew that look. Disassociation. She was still here, but only barely.
I smoothed her hair back, kissed her forehead, and pulled away slowly. My hand found hers—cold, scabbed, small—and I laced our fingers tight, like that might be enough to keep her anchored. “Come on,” I whispered, too soft for anyone else to hear. “Let’s get you inside.”
She blinked up at me, and for a moment I wasn’t sure she’d move. Her breath caught; her body stilled like it couldn’tremember how to answer. But then she gave a small nod, and together we stood and walked—slowly, unsteadily, every step costing her something. Her feet dragged over the gravel, and she stared at the house like it might vanish if she looked away. Her mouth opened, then closed again, like she wanted to speak but couldn’t remember how.
We made it halfway to the porch before her knees buckled. She didn’t fall, so much as fold, like her body had hit the end of what it could carry. I caught her with a quick step sideways, pulling her into my arms as she sagged heavy and boneless against me.
“Hey,” I breathed, holding her close. “I’ve got you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
She didn’t speak. Didn’t resist. Just collapsed into me, her head tucked under my chin, her whole body trembling, not from fear or cold, but from everything she hadn’t been able to feel until now. The adrenaline was gone. The ordeal was over. What remained was the cost.
