Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 354(@200wpm)___ 283(@250wpm)___ 236(@300wpm)
I snort, wiping at my eyes. “Like what? Petting zoo?”
Ozzy’s grin returns, slow and wicked. “Do you want to pet a goat?”
“No,” I say, immediately suspicious. “Why are you asking so enthusiastically?”
“Because goats are fucking cool,” he says. “And you look like the type of girl who’d be into that.”
I laugh, surprised. “Do I?” I ask.
Ozzy lifts a brow. “You had asked a man you had only known for two hours if he was a toy guy.”
My face goes hot. I slap the edge of the counter lightly. “That was—”
“Bold,” he supplies, amused.
“—a question,” I finish stubbornly.
Ozzy’s grin turns softer. “A brave question.”
My stomach flips again. I look away fast. “Okay, fine. Put petting a goat on the list.”
Ozzy writes:
Goat encounter (Salem vs. goat: who wins?)
I bark a laugh. “I would win.”
Ozzy looks up, eyes gleaming. “I think the goat would humble you.”
“I will fight a goat.”
“I would pay to watch that.”
I glare at him. “You would enjoy that.”
“Yeah,” he says without shame. “Very much.”
I shake my head, smiling despite myself. And then it hits me how normal this feels. How easy. Sitting in a kitchen, warm, making a stupid list with a man who keeps looking at me like I matter. It scares me. Because I want him. And wanting things has never ended well for me. I swallow, grounding myself. “Ozzy,” I say quietly.
He looks up immediately, attentive.
“What if they come for me again?” I ask, voice small despite my best effort. “What if they find us?”
Ozzy’s expression turns serious. “They won’t,” he says.
I shake my head, panic rising. “You don’t know that.”
Ozzy steps around the counter and crouches slightly so he’s closer to my eye level, not towering. His voice is low and steady. “You’re right. I don’t know that.”
My throat tightens.
“But I do know this,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “If they try, they’re going through me. And I don’t lose.”
The words are simple. But the conviction behind them is lethal.
My breath catches. I nod once, because I don’t trust my voice.
Ozzy’s gaze holds mine for a beat longer, then he straightens slowly. He doesn’t touch me. But he’s close enough that I feel the heat of him. Close enough that my body remembers last night—his arm around me, his chest solid under my cheek, his voice in my hair telling me I’m safe.
My pulse skitters.
Ozzy clears his throat and steps back, giving me space like he’s practicing restraint on purpose. “Okay,” he says, picking up the notebook again. “List continues. What else have you never done?”
I inhale slowly. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself imagine a future that isn’t just fear. A future that doesn’t involve me leaving this place and returning home. A place I really don’t want to return to. “Roller skating,” I say suddenly.
Ozzy’s brows lift. “That’s… very specific.”
“I always wanted to,” I admit, embarrassed. “But it costs money. And I always felt stupid wanting things like that.”
Ozzy writes it down without comment:
Roller skating
Then he looks up, eyes warm. “We’ll do it.”
My chest tightens. “Lowkey,” I remind him, even though a part of me loves that he keeps saying we like he already plans on being in my future.
“Lowkey,” he agrees, smiling.
I take a sip of tea, warmth spreading through me. The safehouse stays quiet around us, a bubble against the world. But the fear is still there, under my ribs. Because somewhere out there, men are realizing their prize is gone. Because somewhere out there, someone is deciding what to do about that. And because I don’t know if my mother even noticed I disappeared. I stare at Ozzy, at his calm focus, his pen moving across paper like he’s building me something. I’m terrified of hoping.
But I can’t help it. Because for the first time in weeks— I feel like I might not be alone. And if Ozzy really does ask the team to check on my mom… If I really do get an answer…
Maybe I can finally stop wondering whether I’m the kind of person the world forgets.
And I can finally start being the kind of person who stays.
TEN
OZZY
If you’d told me last week that I’d be coordinating a covert delivery of skateboards and roller skates to a Maddox safehouse like it’s an Amazon Prime order for joy, I would’ve asked what drugs you were on and whether you were sharing.
But here we are.
Rainmaker is quiet in the late morning—sunlight spilling across the living room floor, the house warm and calm and deceptively normal. Salem is in the kitchen humming under her breath while she rinses berries in a colander, hair pulled up messy, wearing one of the oversized tees from Juno’s duffel.
She looks… lighter. She’s still guarded. Still scanning windows sometimes like her body can’t help it. But lighter. And that matters.