Chapter 4 Kristen
I slept on the couch because the bed still smelled like him.
Not his cologne. Not anything clean. It smelled like the faint soap he used and the dry paper scent of the books he read in bed at night, and every time I tried to lie there my chest locked up like something was sitting on it. The couch was worse for my back, but better for my head. I could curl into myself and pretend I was just waiting for him to come home.
Days passed without shape. Morning light slid across the marble floors and disappeared again. I ate cereal straight from the box for dinner because it required no decisions. The staff moved quietly, like they were afraid sound itself might break me. Someone sent lilies. Someone else sent roses. I let them wilt in their vases without changing the water.
Patricia came every afternoon. She sat across from me, legs crossed, hands folded, watching me like I might dissolve if she blinked. Sometimes she spoke. Sometimes she didn’t. I mostly stared at the hallway that led to my father’s study, half-expecting to hear his voice drift out, irritated and warm and alive.
Find Leo.
It followed me everywhere. In the echo of my footsteps. In the hum of the refrigerator. In the soft tick of the clocks mounted throughout the house. I heard it when I tried to sleep and when I woke up disoriented, heart racing, convinced for one foolish second that none of this had happened.
On the fifth day, Patricia finally broke the silence.
“You need to think about Phoenix,” she said gently.
I didn’t look at her right away. I kept my eyes on the far wall, where a framed photograph of my parents still hung. My mother looked frozen in time there, smiling, her hand on my father’s arm like she was anchoring him to the world.
“He wanted me to go,” I said. My voice sounded steady, even to me. “So I’ll go.”
Patricia nodded, relief flickering across her face before she smoothed it away. She didn’t argue. She didn’t try to convince me otherwise. She just reached out and squeezed my hand once, like that settled it.
Later that night, I wandered into my father’s study for the first time since the funeral. The air felt heavier in there, like it had been waiting for me. I opened drawers I had no reason to open. Old receipts. Pens that didn’t work anymore. A pair of cufflinks I’d never seen him wear.
In the back of the desk, I found his watch.
It was heavier than I remembered, the leather strap worn soft from years of use. I buckled it around my wrist without thinking, feeling the unfamiliar weight settle against my skin. It ticked steadily, indifferent to everything it had outlived.
I sat on the floor with my laptop and scrolled through Phoenix Academy’s site, clicking through recommended wardrobes and orientation guides. Everything looked wrong. Too polished. Too curated. Too much like a version of myself that didn’t exist anymore. I closed the tab and stared at my reflection in the dark screen.
The next morning, I told Patricia I needed clothes.
“I can come with you,” she said immediately.
“I need to do something alone,” I replied, and surprised myself by how firm my voice sounded.
She studied me for a long moment, then nodded. “Call me if you change your mind.”
I grabbed my keys, pulled on a hoodie, and headed for the garage. I told myself I was fine. That this was normal. That people went shopping every day after their fathers died.
The drive started quietly enough. The estate roads gave way to open stretches of asphalt, fields blurring past my windows. I turned the radio on, then off again when the music felt too intrusive. Somewhere outside the city limits, the car made a sound I didn’t recognize.
It sputtered. Coughed. Then died completely.
I coasted to the shoulder, heart thudding harder than it should have. Smoke curled up from beneath the hood in thin, mocking wisps. I got out and stared at it like it might explain itself if I waited long enough.
I popped the hood and peered inside, immediately aware of how useless I was. I had no idea what I was looking for. I reached for my phone and felt my stomach drop when the screen stayed black.
Dead.
I didn’t hear the footsteps at first.
I was too focused on the engine, on the ridiculousness of it all, on how unfair it felt that even the car had chosen today to betray me. It wasn’t until a shadow crossed the pavement beside me that I looked up.
Three men stood a few feet away.
They hadn’t come from a car. I would have heard it. They looked like they’d been there for a while, watching. One leaned back against a guardrail. Another held a cigarette he wasn’t smoking. The third smiled at me like we were already sharing a joke.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. “That your car? Or your boyfriend’s?”
I straightened slowly, my pulse pounding in my ears. “It’s mine.”
He glanced at the others. “Fancy.”
I stepped away from the car and started toward the road, intending to flag someone down, but they shifted with me, blocking the path without touching me yet. My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag.
“I don’t want trouble,” I said.
The one with the cigarette laughed softly. “Neither do we.”
I tried to move past them anyway. The smiling one reached out and grabbed my bag, yanking it off my shoulder. The suddenness of it knocked the air out of me.
“Hey,” I snapped, grabbing for it. “Give that back.”
He jerked it out of reach. “Relax.”
I shoved him.
It was a stupid thing to do. I knew that the second my hands hit his chest. He stumbled back more from surprise than force, but the mood shifted instantly. The third man stepped forward and shoved me hard.
I hit the ground on my knees, gravel biting through my jeans. Pain flared, sharp and hot. I sucked in a breath and tasted blood where I’d bitten my lip.
The smiling one wasn’t smiling anymore.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.
Not waved. Not raised. Just held casually at his side, like it was another limb.
“Well,” he said lightly, “that was rude.”
My heart hammered so hard I thought I might pass out. I scrambled backward on my hands, the world narrowing to the black shape of the weapon and the scrape of my palms on asphalt. I tried to speak. Nothing came out.
They closed in.
Then—
A thunderous roar cut through the air, sudden and violent, rattling my bones.
A motorcycle tore onto the shoulder, engine screaming, headlights blazing like something feral and unleashed, and it crashed through the silence as if it had been waiting for this moment all along.