Page 96 of The Last Call Home
And I’m not sure what’s harder to survive—the flames outside or the heat rising in my chest when they look at me like that.
I’m frozen.Numb.Grief and fear are building a nest in my ribs and I can’t get them out.I don’t know how to move.
Cassian shifts behind me.I feel the decision in him before he says it.
“Lilah,” he murmurs into my hair, “we need to go.”
My knees buckle slightly, but his arms tighten, catching me before I fall.
“I can’t just leave her—Mom might still be—” My voice breaks, throat raw from more than smoke.
“She’s not inside,” he says firmly.“As I told you earlier, she left before you did, but I’ll have an agent head her way to make sure she’s okay.Right now, I’m getting you out of here.”
I want to argue.I want to stay and scream and claw my way through what’s left.But I’m shaking too hard.I feel hollowed out and stretched thinly like one more shock might split me in two.
Cass leans in, brushing his lips against my temple, softer than breath.“Let me protect you this time, Delilah.Please.”
I nod because I can’t do anything else.And because some part of me—the part still stitched together—wants to let him.
He scoops me into his arms like it’s nothing like I haven’t spent years building walls too high to climb.And as he carries me through the smoke and the crowd, I finally let myself fold into him.
ChapterForty-One
Malerick
The past fewdays have come at me like a fucking storm I didn’t see coming.First, Keir disappears.He’s not the easiest man to reach on a good day—constantly muttering about people leaving him the fuck alone, always one wrong look away from snapping—but he still answers.
Always.
No matter how pissed off or shut down he gets, he answers.Except now he doesn’t.Not a single fucking word.No call.No text.Just radio silence.And I don’t know what’s worse: the idea that he’s gone off-grid on purpose or the possibility that someone made that choice for him.
I keep telling myself he’s laying low.That maybe he’s spiraling or holed up somewhere, being his broody, stubborn self.He wants to cash out and get the fuck out.He even suggested we sell Maple Haven and Mom’s house.
Is he really running away?Did someone get to him?Fuck.The second option keeps clawing at the back of my mind like a feral fucking thing I can’t ignore.Because if the Hollow Syndicate got to him ...if they found him before we could shut this shit down—then he’s not running.He’s not safe nor hiding.He’s already dead.
Fuck.
As if that wasn’t enough, Lilah’s bakery exploded the same exact way the Doherty Mansion did right after Ledger’s wedding.It was as if the building was soaked in gasoline and bad intentions.I got there just in time to watch the place devoured, smoke pouring into the sky like it was erasing her from the town brick by brick.
I saw Lilah collapse into Cassian’s arms—shaking, breathless, broken in that quiet, terrifying way people get when the world takes something too fast for the body to process.And I stood there, feeling fucking helpless, knowing her mom built that place with her bare hands and that Lilah made it what it is today based on her mother’s dreams.
Then the final blow came.They found a body on Route Nine, just outside Larkspur.Technically, it’s still in my county, but far enough that it slipped through jurisdiction like a ghost.No name.No ID.Just locked in the trunk of a wrecked car as someone threw him away.Word is he was airlifted to Boston, barely alive when they loaded him up.But he didn’t make it.Died before they landed on the helipad.
I don’t know who he was yet.I don’t know what he was caught up in.But my gut won’t shut the fuck up about it.Every part of this—the fire, Keir going missing, the dead man in the trunk—it all reeks.There’s something rotten crawling underneath it all, and it’s starting to surface.
This isn’t random.This isn’t a coincidence.It has the Hollow Syndicate smeared all over it like blood on asphalt.And if they’re back in Birchwood Springs—if they’re crawling around my county like it’s their personal fucking playground again—then it’s only a matter of time before more lives get torn apart.
And I’ve already lost too fucking much.
By the time I reach the cabin, the tension in my jaw has been grinding for hours.The drive gave me too much time to think, too many worst-case scenarios looping like a goddamn fever dream.
When I step inside, the sight of her nearly knocks the wind out of me.
Delilah’s curled in the center of my bed, tucked beneath the fluffed comforter, her hair tangled against the pillow like she’s been fighting nightmares, awake with every slow breath.She’s wearing one of my old shirts—navy blue, sleeves falling past her hands, the collar slipping off one bare shoulder like it doesn’t know how to stay in place.
And Cassian—he’s wrapped around her like he’s daring the world to try again.One arm draped across her waist, the other bent under her head, fingers threaded through hers.His body’s curved protectively behind hers, chest to back, as if he could absorb whatever might come next.
He’s not just close.He’s guarding her.
