Chapter 184 up
The building did not look like a place where children were lost.
That was the first thing Nyla noticed.
It stood behind a high fence painted in soft, neutral colors—gray leaning toward blue, the kind meant to calm rather than warn. There were no bars on the windows, no visible guards with weapons. Just a discreet sign with an institutional name that sounded temporary, harmless. Assessment Facility. Transitional Care.
Official. Clean. Cold.
Nyla stepped out of the car before it had fully stopped.
Her legs felt unsteady beneath her, as if her body still remembered the pavement, the fall, the moment she had been left behind. Vincent called her name, but she barely heard him. Her focus had narrowed into something sharp and singular.
Evan was here.
That knowledge pressed against her chest, tightening her breath. Relief tried to surface, but fear rose faster, heavier. Finding him did not mean taking him home. It did not mean safety. It only meant that the system had decided to reveal where it had placed him.
For now.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of disinfectant and something floral meant to soften it. The floors were polished to a dull shine. The lights were too white, too even, erasing shadows rather than creating warmth.
A woman at the desk looked up, professional and measured. She asked for names. For identification. For signatures.
Paper before people.
Nyla signed with a hand that trembled despite her effort to keep it still.
“We weren’t expecting you this early,” the woman said, scanning the documents.
Nyla latched onto the word. “Early?”
There was a brief hesitation. A recalibration.
“We were informed visitation would be scheduled for later this afternoon.”
“I’m here now,” Nyla said quietly.
Something in her voice must have shifted, because the woman nodded and stood. “I’ll take you to him.”
The hallway they walked down was long and narrow, lined with doors that were all the same. Nyla tried not to look at them, tried not to imagine what might be behind each one. She focused on the rhythm of her steps, on the sound of her own breathing.
At the end of the hall, the woman stopped.
“Just… give him a moment,” she said, her tone softer now. “He’s been through a lot.”
Nyla’s throat tightened.
The door opened.
The room was small but orderly. A table. Two chairs. A couch pushed against the wall. A window high enough that it let in light but no view. Toys sat neatly arranged on a shelf, untouched, like props in a play no one had started.
Evan sat on the couch.
He looked smaller than Nyla remembered.
Not physically—though the oversized sweater they had given him swallowed his frame—but in the way he held himself. His shoulders were slightly hunched, his hands folded tightly in his lap, fingers twisting together in a familiar, anxious rhythm.
For a fraction of a second, Nyla couldn’t move.
Her chest ached with the effort of breathing, of holding everything inside her at once. She had imagined this moment a thousand times while lying awake at night, replaying different outcomes. None of them had prepared her for the quiet.
“Evan,” she said.
Her voice broke on his name.
His head lifted slowly.
At first, his eyes slid past her, unfocused, like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Then they sharpened. Locked. Studied.
He did not run.
He stood, but cautiously, as if sudden movement might cause the scene to dissolve. His gaze swept over her face, her hair, the faint yellowing bruise near her jaw she hadn’t been able to fully hide.
“You’re really here,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
It was a test.
Nyla nodded, swallowing hard. “I am.”
He took a step closer. Then another. Each movement deliberate, careful, as though he were crossing unstable ground.
Up close, she could see the changes more clearly. The dark circles beneath his eyes. The tension that hadn’t been there before, coiled tightly beneath his skin. He smelled different too—not like her apartment, not like the laundry soap she used. Something institutional.
He stopped just in front of her.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then Evan leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her.
The force of it nearly knocked the breath from her lungs.
He clung to her with a desperation that startled her, his fingers digging into the fabric of her coat, his forehead pressed hard against her chest. His body trembled, whether from suppressed sobs or something deeper, she couldn’t tell.
Nyla’s arms came around him instinctively, holding him just as tightly, as if by sheer force she could anchor him to her, keep him from being pulled away again.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Evan didn’t cry.
That frightened her more than if he had.
Instead, he breathed against her, fast and uneven, his grip never loosening. She felt his heart racing, felt the tension in his muscles as if he were bracing for impact.
Minutes passed.
Eventually, his breathing slowed just enough for him to speak.
“They said you weren’t coming,” he murmured.
Nyla stiffened almost imperceptibly. “Who did?”
“The people here.” His voice was flat, careful. “They said you agreed.”
Her arms tightened around him. “Agreed to what?”
Evan pulled back slightly, just enough to look up at her. His eyes searched her face again, deeper this time, as if trying to reconcile two competing truths.
“That you let me go.”
The words hit her like a physical blow.
Nyla’s breath caught painfully in her throat.
“No,” she said immediately, too fast. “No, Evan. I would never—”
He watched her closely, his expression unreadable. Not accusing. Just… wary.
“They said you understood it was better this way,” he continued. “That you didn’t want to fight anymore.”
Nyla felt something cold coil in her stomach.
This was worse than distance. Worse than force.
This was narrative.
She sank down onto the couch, pulling Evan with her so he sat pressed against her side. She needed him grounded, needed him to feel her presence in a way that words alone could not accomplish.
“Listen to me,” she said softly, firmly. “I never let you go. Not once. They took you. From me.”
Evan’s jaw tightened.
“They told me you signed papers.”
Her vision blurred. She blinked hard, fighting tears. “I signed papers to find you. To get you back. That’s all.”
Silence settled between them.
Evan leaned into her again, but this time the embrace was different—less frantic, more uncertain. As if part of him wanted to believe her, and another part was afraid of what believing might cost.
“They’re nice,” he said after a moment.
The sentence felt like a trap.
“Nice how?” Nyla asked carefully.
“They smile,” Evan replied. “They don’t yell. They say it’s temporary.”
Temporary.
Nyla had learned to fear that word.
“They also say things a lot,” Evan continued. “About how I need to learn to be flexible. About how people don’t always stay.”
Her chest tightened painfully.
“What do you say?” she asked.
Evan shrugged, but the movement was stiff. “I don’t say much.”
She brushed a hand through his hair, her touch gentle, grounding. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”
He nodded, but she wasn’t sure he believed that either.
The door opened quietly behind them. The woman from before stood there, careful not to intrude, but present all the same.
“Five more minutes,” she said.
Five minutes.
As if time could be portioned like that.
Nyla pressed her forehead lightly against Evan’s temple. “I’m here,” she repeated, not sure if she was convincing him or herself. “I found you.”
Evan closed his eyes briefly.
When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“I thought maybe you stopped looking.”
Something inside Nyla broke then, clean and final.
She held him tighter, as if that could erase the thought from ever having existed. “Never,” she said. “Not for a second.”
The woman shifted at the door, uncomfortable.
Nyla knew then, with sickening clarity, that finding Evan was only the beginning. That safety, whatever fragile version of it existed here, was conditional. Monitored. Reversible.