Chapter 64 Leo
I wasn’t expecting her to pull up in a car. Not tonight. Not at all. I had stationed myself at the edge of the safe house property, leaning against the rough stone of the outer gate pillar with my senses keyed tighter than thrum wires under tension. The air was cool against my skin, the neighborhood quiet, every breath steady and measured. I watched shadows fold into the night and tried not to think too deeply about the notification I’d left unanswered, the way my pulse still stuttered sometimes when her name was light in someone else’s mouth.
Then headlights appeared — sleek, too precise, and moving without the usual distant rumble. It was silent, wrong, like it didn’t belong there. It glided into view, a black car with smooth lines that made it look more like a shadow than a vehicle. I narrowed my eyes immediately.
The driver’s side didn’t open. The door didn’t slam. There was nothing about it that sounded human when it shut or moved. It was almost too clean in its motion, too controlled, like it was a luxury car on display rather than a vehicle transporting a living person.
Then she stepped out.
Kristen.
Head down. Shoulders tense. Arms wrapped around herself just slightly, like she was bracing against something I couldn’t see. Her steps weren’t hurried, but they weren’t casual either. There was something deliberate in the way she moved, as if she was trying to make herself small and unnoticeable in a moment where being noticed was exactly what mattered.
The car already pulled away by the time I stepped forward. No driver rising from the seat. No casual glance toward her back as she walked. Just the smooth black frame receding down the street like a ghost retreating into shadow.
I exhaled through my nose, a sharp hiss I didn’t bother to deny. Something in me clenched, but I forced myself to stay still for a beat longer, letting my muscles unwind just enough to regain control.
Then I walked toward her, boots tapping not quite quietly on the gravel. The moment she saw me, her head lifted, eyes narrowing in recognition and immediate caution.
“Who was that?” I asked, tone low but firm. No hesitation. No softness.
She didn’t look startled. Only tired. And guarded.
“A professor,” she said with a flat tone that made my spine tighten.
“Which one?” I pressed.
“Walter Stone,” she answered almost without thinking, eyes flicking to mine like she was already preparing her defense.
My brow furrowed, not with confusion as much as tightening concern. “And what were you doing in his car?”
Her eyes flared then, not with fear, not with embarrassment, but with irritation.
“You know what? It’s none of your business,” she snapped.
My breath was already steady, but my pulse ticked up at her tone. Not in anger so much as recognition. She was tired of being watched, of being overseen, of every movement logged and questioned. I understood that on a logical level. But instinct didn’t care about logic in moments like this. It cared about protection and danger and proximity.
“He’s a stranger,” I said, trying to anchor the conversation in something concrete. “You don’t get in cars with strangers.”
“He’s faculty,” she shot back, jaw tightening. “Not a stalker.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And you do?” she challenged, head tilting just slightly, eyes flaring. “I know what predators look like.”
Her laugh in that moment was bitter and tired, stripped of amusement. It hit me like a slap, not because it was untrue, but because it was so raw, so real in its exhaustion.
“I hate to keep reminding you, Leo,” she said, and her voice sharpened under the weight of everything she felt she’d already explained before but never had enough words for, “but once again: you’re not my father.”
Silence hit the air like a physical thing.
I didn’t speak right away. My jaw ached with tension. My eyes stung with that raw surge of denial and frustration that had nothing to do with children and fathers and everything to do with boundaries and proximity and the way my entire world narrowed to her whenever she was in sight.
Then, almost too quick and too sharp, the words left my mouth without the filter I usually dragged over them.
“Then stop acting like a child.”
Her face shifted. Not in shock, not in confusion, but in that unguarded moment where her expression softened into something that was closer to hurt than anger.
I saw something flicker there — something I hadn’t meant to ignite, something I couldn’t take back.
“You don’t know what’s at stake,” I added, quieter now, the edge in my voice replaced by something heavier. Not softness. Not guilt. But truth. What she didn’t understand, what I hadn’t yet been able to articulate, was that I was acting not because I wanted control — I was acting because the cost of failure was unbearable to contemplate.
But I didn’t explain that. Not in those words.
“What, Leo?” she asked, her voice steady but trembling just beneath the surface. “What’s at stake?”
I looked at her for a long time.
The night brushed against us. The wind was too still. Shadows gathered around the edges of the yard. Everything felt like it was hanging on breath.
But I didn’t answer.
My throat worked, dry and tight, and not a single word found its way out. Not because I didn’t want to speak. Not because I couldn’t explain the danger, the risk, the predictions and prophecies and the fragile balance of realities that hinged on her existence. But because saying it out loud would have been like handing her a weapon before she was ready to understand the blade.
“So I’m supposed to just … lie here,” she continued, frustration rising in her voice, “and let you watch every detail of my life like I’m some fragile thing because you’re afraid to tell me the truth?”
Something in her phrasing stabbed at me. Not because it was right. Not because she was wrong. But because she was no longer just a mission or a girl I was supposed to keep alive. She was a person. A person with opinions, with teeth, with fire and spine and the capacity to stare danger in the eyes and not flinch.
And I could still not tell her what it was she needed to hear.
Because I wasn’t sure I could bear the cost of her knowing it.
I opened my mouth, closed it again. Nothing came.
She stared at me for a long moment, waiting.
I didn’t follow.
Her gaze didn’t soften. It didn’t shut down. It didn’t crumble.
She turned and walked into the house.
I watched her go from the porch, body stiff, jaw clenched, eyes locked on her retreating figure until the door closed softly behind her.
I did not follow.
I stayed where I was, leaning back against the stone pillar, arms folded tightly across my chest. Not because I didn’t care. Not because I was proud. Not because I was unmoved.
But because everyone who stood too close to her with love in their eyes ended up getting hurt in ways that couldn’t be fixed.
The night breathed around me.
Cool wind settled against bare skin.
And I stood there in silence, waiting for something to change.
Anything.
But the world simply carried on.
And nothing about that made me feel safe.