The Burroughs' Residence
 

Heather should have listened to Alice Mae and quit while she was ahead. She'd found something potentially new and possibly helpful to the mystery surrounding Shadyside, but she'd only had tunnel vision of the glory at the end of it. Now she was questioning her sanity and wishing to return to her mundane life in Sunnyvale, but it felt too late. She was in too deep now. Not only her either; her friends too. Old and new.

Once the trance had worn off, Benji rushed Heather into his car and back to his place. They wanted to get as far away from the graveyard as possible and as quickly as possible. His trailer was about what she'd expect out of a Shadyside home, but it was also much more than that. There was plenty to learn about a person from their home. Heather did her best not to be too judgemental, but it was much different from what she was used to, and he was lucky that she'd already developed a bit of a crush on him before bringing her here. She may have been more open-minded than most of her peers, but she was still a Sunnyvaler accustomed to a particular lifestyle.

"Well? Any luck?" she asked when he reemerged from his bedroom down the hall. He had left her on the couch while he grabbed some weed from his room and called his friends. They were far away from the graveyard and tunnels, but she still felt like they were in danger somehow. Someone had to have been adding to the list of names recently, so what if they'd somehow seen them? Or had secret cameras set up? There was still no logical explanation for the mysterious beating heart unless they'd both had the same hallucination.

"On second thought, I'm already feeling pretty paranoid... maybe weed isn't the best idea," Heather admitted with a nervous smile. She wanted to seem cool and resilient, but it wasn't like she had faced much real danger in her life. Right now, she wanted to hide under her covers with Sir Bobbins of Fluffington and forget everything that had happened in the past month or two. Well... maybe not everything. If she couldn't snuggle her favorite childhood stuffie, perhaps she could snuggle the cute boy sitting next to her instead. "You think you could just hold me for a little bit first?"

Benji had been in plenty of fucked up situations, but none as fucked up as tonight. Whatever was going on in those tunnels was unexplainable. He didn't know what the fuck he saw. It was unnatural. At least he didn't see it alone. Heather saw everything too. Eli didn't want to believe him, but now Benji had Heather to corroborate his story.

After getting in the truck and getting Heather out of whatever the fuck that was, Benji didn't feel any better about what had just occurred. A feeling of dread washed over Benji as he drove away, repeatedly calling Heather’s name, trying to wake her out of the coma-like trance. He felt much better the further they went; Heather finally came to.

Benji hadn't been home in a few days due to getting into a fight with his alcoholic mother. His mom worked at a local bar, and his dad worked in the plastic factory. He was a bit passive and lacked a backbone. It was a very toxic household—one he chose not to speak of. Luckily for them, both his parents worked overnight, and his trailer was empty. Because he hadn’t been home in a few days, he was unsure of the state of the inside. Thankfully, it looked like someone had picked up. He was a tad embarrassed, regardless. Heather was from Sunnyvale. He was from Shadyside. He lived in a fucking trailer, whereas she probably lived in some big fancy fucking house. Yet, she was here. Granted, she was scared to fucking death. Where else was she going to go?

Benji hurried down the hallway, grabbed his box with his stash from his room, and scurried back to Heather, who was waiting in the living room. When he returned, he could see how shaken she was over the whole thing. He frowned and nodded when she asked if he could hold her. Benji sat the wooden box on the coffee table while the other reached out to grab Heather's forearm and guide her towards his couch.

“I’ve been told I’m quite the cuddler,” Benji announced with a smirk before wrapping his arm around Heather and pulling her into him. “Look, I don’t know what happened or what that was. I… I don’t have an answer. Not yet. We can figure this out, though. It’s been done before.” Benji tried to reassure her while his arms protectively wrapped around her. “It’s not the witch. It’s never really the witch. It’s someone controlling the witch, but I don’t understand because Samantha and Deena supposedly broke the curse in 1994. It doesn’t make sense.” If Benji remembered correctly, The Widow’s book went missing after Sam and Deena exposed Nick Goode and murdered him in the tunnels Benji and Heather had been exploring. Fuck! He didn’t know who could be behind the killings this time, but if he knew anything, that person knew what Heather, her friends and himself stumbled upon. This was not good for them. At all.

If she didn’t want to smoke the weed, Benji might have something else that could take the edge off. Without disturbing her, he reached in his front pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. “Want to try this? It’s a bit safer and it will calm you down,” he offered, holding the pack in front of her.

Heather hated this kind of party.

Not that she used to—back when everything felt simpler and fitting in was just muscle memory. Back when smiling came easy and she could dance without thinking about who might be watching. But tonight, as music pounded through the polished floors of some Sunnyvale senior’s sprawling McMansion, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was floating above it all. Outside of it. A ghost in lip gloss and platform heels.

The kitchen was crowded. Bottles clinked. Someone spilled vodka into a Solo cup and passed it to her without asking. She took it anyway, sipping the burn and barely flinching. Alice Mae and Caleb were somewhere nearby, probably still trying to hook her into another game of Never Have I Ever or get her to laugh at whatever inside joke they’d recycled for the third time.

They didn’t get it. Not really. The weird dreams. The tunnel map that wouldn’t stop showing up in her head. The names she couldn't stop repeating like they were etched into the back of her teeth.

She didn’t tell them everything. Not anymore.

Heather slipped through the kitchen crowd, cup in hand, and made her way to the side room where coats were stacked haphazardly on a velvet settee. Her fingers found the neck of an unopened bottle—something amber and expensive-looking—and she slid it into her oversized purse with practiced ease. No one saw. No one cared.

A few minutes later, she was backing her car out of the driveway, headlights sweeping across perfect hedges and manicured lawns. Her phone buzzed once—Alice Mae: where r u?—and then again—Caleb: u good? She let both messages sit unread.

The roads blurred into black as she headed toward the outskirts of town, the transition from Sunnyvale to Shadyside marked by cracked pavement and flickering streetlights. Somewhere between one world and the next, Heather felt her lungs expand. Not ease, exactly—but the pressure in her chest loosened just enough to breathe.

Benji trailer sat at the edge of a narrow road, tucked back behind a row of leaning trees and overgrown weeds. It looked the same as always—a little beat-up, windows glowing faintly with warm light, a battered truck parked out front like a loyal old dog.

Heather pulled up beside it, killed the engine, and sat in the quiet for a moment. Her fingers tapped absently against the bottle resting in her lap.

She didn’t know why it felt safer here. Why Benji, with his sardonic grin and flannel shirts, felt more like home than the people she'd grown up with. But he did. And tonight, that was enough.

She got out of the car, her boots crunching on gravel, and walked up the short steps.

Then she knocked on the trailer’s door.

Benji heard the knock before he registered what time it was.

Three slow raps. Not urgent. Not impatient. Just… there.

He unwrapped the headphone wire from around his fingers, pushed off the couch, and padded toward the door. The static hum of the busted TV filled the trailer like background radiation—familiar, constant. He didn’t bother muting it.

When he opened the door and saw Heather standing there, he didn’t say anything at first.

She looked like something out of a dream he hadn’t dared let himself have. Lip gloss smudged, hair wild from wind or motion or maybe just existing too long in a world that didn’t deserve her. That bottle glinting in her hand like a secret.

She looked tired. But not weak.

Like someone who’d walked through hell in heels and dared it to blink first.

“Heather,” he said, and her name tasted like the past—like old secrets and bonfire smoke and the first time he realized she was more than just a pretty face in a perfect town.

“You okay?”

She didn’t answer. Just looked at him with those eyes that always seemed to see through things—people, lies, herself.

Benji stepped aside without another word.

Because she didn’t knock on doors unless something was wrong.

And maybe, just maybe, she knew he was the kind of person who’d believe her when no one else would.

Heather didn’t speak right away. Just stood there on the porch, the quiet settling between them like fog. Then, without a word, she pulled the bottle from her purse and held it up with a raised eyebrow—half challenge, half invitation.

“I brought something,” she said, her voice dry but edged with something else. Something like relief.

Benji stepped aside, and she moved past him into the trailer like she’d done it a hundred times before, even if this was only the third or fourth. The space smelled faintly of cigarettes, pine-scented cleaner, and whatever takeout he’d last abandoned on the counter. She didn’t mind. It was real. Honest. Unlike the house she’d just come from, where everything sparkled too much and everyone pretended not to be exhausted by each other.

She set the bottle on the kitchen counter with a soft thunk and turned to face him, arms crossed, lips pressing together before she spoke.

“I’m okay,” she said, and then shrugged. “In a… matter of speaking.”

Benji raised an eyebrow, and it made something in her chest tighten.

“Define okay.”

Heather huffed out a laugh—low, unsteady, not really amused. She leaned against the counter and glanced down at the scuff on the toe of her boot like it had answers.

“I mean… I didn’t lose it at the party. Didn’t scream at Caleb when he said I should ‘just stop thinking about it for a night.’” Her voice pitched higher, mocking lightly. “Didn’t cry when Alice Mae gave me that look like I’d started glowing in the dark.”

She picked up the bottle again, twisting the cap off but not pouring anything yet.

“I know they care,” she added, quieter now. “I do. They’re just… they don’t get it. Not like you do.”

Her gaze flicked up to meet his, something raw shining behind it. She hadn’t meant to say that part. But once it was out, it stayed.

“I don’t know if that makes me crazy or if it just makes them lucky.”

The trailer hummed around them, warm and humming with low static. Heather set the bottle down again and crossed her arms, trying to act like she wasn’t unraveling beneath her skin.

“But I didn’t want to be there anymore,” she finished, finally. “I wanted to be here.”

With you hung silent between the lines.

She didn’t say it.

But she didn’t need to.

Benji watched her step inside like the trailer had been waiting for her. Like it breathed easier when she crossed the threshold.

She looked different tonight. Not in the way people usually mean. Not her makeup or her clothes or her hair—though yeah, the glitter on her cheekbones was smudged and her boots were muddy at the edges. It was something else. Something in the way her shoulders sat—like she’d been holding herself up too long and was just now remembering how to drop her guard.

She moved through the space like she knew it. Like she’d mapped it in her head the way some people map exits and escape routes. Like she could find her way through the dark if the lights cut out.

Benji watched the bottle appear from her bag. Something expensive, stolen maybe—he didn’t ask. He didn’t need to. The thunk it made when she set it on the counter sounded like punctuation. Not a period, but something heavier. Something final.

She leaned against the counter, arms crossed. Her face was calm, almost blank, but her eyes were storming. He could tell. He always could.

There was a tension in her jaw he recognized—like she was holding something back, something sharp and already half-swallowed. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, glanced down at her boot, picked up the bottle again, twisted the cap. Didn’t pour. Just held it like a question she didn’t know how to ask.

Benji didn’t press. He never had. People like Heather didn’t need pressure. They needed stillness. Space.

He moved to the counter, grabbed two mugs—one with a chipped lip, the other with a faded Shadyside High logo—and poured them each a finger of the amber stuff. When he handed hers over, their fingers brushed. Cold.

He nodded toward her mug. “It’s not much, but it burns enough to feel real.”

She didn’t say anything, but her grip tightened just a little.

Benji leaned back, sipped his, and studied her over the rim.

“You don’t have to explain it,” he said. His voice was low, matter-of-fact. “Whatever it is. You’re here. That’s all the explanation I need.”

She looked up, then. Just a flick of her gaze, but it hit him like a pulse.

He held it, quiet and steady. Let her see he meant it.

“I don’t know what the hell’s going on in this town,” he said, thumb tracing the edge of his mug. “But I’ve seen enough to know something’s wrong. Always has been.”

He gave a small, humorless laugh. “You ever notice how no one really talks about the bad stuff here? Like the second something horrible happens, it’s swept under the rug and we’re all supposed to move on? Keep smiling. Keep pretending.”

He paused. Sighed through his nose.

“Everyone in Sunnyvale thinks we’re cursed ‘cause we don’t have granite countertops and new cars. But Shadyside’s been sick a long time. The kind of sick that gets in your bones.”

He looked at her again, softer now.

“I believe you,” he said. “Even if no one else does. Even if it doesn’t make sense yet.”

Outside, the wind scraped across the trailer walls like it was trying to listen in. The night felt watchful. Waiting.

Benji raised his mug, just a little.

“To ghosts,” he said. “The kind that don’t stay buried.”

Her eyes met his again, and he saw it—that flicker of something almost like peace. Like maybe she wasn’t alone in the dark after all.

And if that’s all he could give her tonight, he’d call it a win.

Heather raised her mug, but didn’t drink. Not yet.

She stared into the liquid like it might divine something for her—some answer, some absolution. But it didn’t swirl. It didn’t shine. Just sat there, dark and still. Like a secret with no intention of being told.

To ghosts, Benji had said.

And weren’t they all ghosts, in some way? Pieces of themselves left behind in houses they never went back to, nights they didn’t talk about, moments that never stopped echoing.

Heather tilted her head, just slightly. The overhead light caught on the edge of her cheekbone, highlighting the faint smudge of glitter that still clung there like a battle scar from a war fought mostly in silence.

She didn’t respond right away.

Didn’t need to.

Sunnyvale girls were raised on politeness and pretend. Heather knew how to say nothing with a smile. How to bite down on a scream and call it composure. But this—this quiet trailer and the boy who never asked her to be less or more than she was—made her forget to play pretend.

“I used to think Shadyside was the sickness and we were the cure,” she said, voice smooth, even. “Back home, the lawns are manicured, the PTA meetings are bloody gladiator rings in pearl earrings, and no one ever dies violently unless it’s off-screen and preferably off-season.”

A pause. She smirked faintly, but it didn’t touch her eyes.

“I thought we were blessed. Turns out we’re just better at burying things before they rot. Not cleaner. Just quieter.”

She took a slow sip, let the burn settle at the back of her throat before setting the mug down again with a gentle clink.

“Shadyside bleeds in the open. But Sunnyvale? We smile through the decay. Pretend we don’t smell the rot.” She looked at him then, eyes sharp and glassy. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t run screaming when the murders started again. I’d already seen what it looks like when something ugly eats a place from the inside out. I just hadn’t given it a name yet.”

Benji didn’t speak. Just listened the way he always did—like silence was a language he understood better than most.

Her eyes dropped to her mug again. Her voice, when it came, was quieter.

“I wish I could go back. To who I was before I climbed down into those tunnels beneath the graveyard. Before I knew what the air smells like where the sun never touches.” Her lip curled, self-directed. “Before I figured out that fate doesn’t care how golden your zip code is. You dig deep enough, even Sunnyvale has bones.”

Another sip. This one deeper.

“But then I wouldn’t have this.” Her eyes flicked toward Benji. She didn’t say it like a confession. Just a fact.

“This whole nightmare—it brought me you.” She smiled, wry and bitter-sweet. “So I guess even a curse knows how to be generous.”

Outside, the wind knocked against the trailer again, louder this time. Heather didn’t flinch.

“To ghosts,” she echoed, finally.

She downed the rest of the amber liquid, a single, clean swallow. A streak of it slipped out the corner of her mouth, trailing down her jaw. She wiped it away with the back of her hand—graceful, deliberate, unapologetic.

Then she set the mug down like she was done with it. Like she was done pretending, too.

She set the empty mug down with a soft clink, the motion precise but final, like punctuation at the end of a sentence she didn’t feel like finishing. Then, wordlessly, she reached for the bottle.

No hesitation this time.

She wrapped her fingers around the neck of it, lifted it clean off the counter, and brought it to her lips. The amber liquid hit harder without the buffer of glass or conversation—but she didn’t flinch. Just let the burn chase the ghosts down.

When she lowered the bottle, her eyes found his.

There was something in the look she gave him—head slightly tilted, one brow arching just enough to make it clear this wasn’t a request. It was an invitation. Join me, it said. Or don’t. But I’m going, with or without you.

Then she turned.

Boots silent on the thin trailer carpet, she made her way to the couch like she owned it. Like she’d always belonged there. Like maybe she was trying to reclaim something soft before the night stole it away.

She sat, legs crossed at her ankles, bottle still in hand, the glitter on her cheek catching the dim light like a war medal. Her free arm stretched across the back of the couch—not quite touching his space, but hovering close enough to leave room for something else. Something unsaid.

She didn’t look at him again.

Didn’t need to.

Benji watched her like a story he wasn’t ready to read aloud yet.

There was something holy in the way she moved—casual, bruised, untouchable. Like a patron saint of the damned, too tired to preach but too stubborn to fall. The bottle dangled from her fingers like a torch in a dark place, and her glitter—the last remnant of that other life—shimmered like blood on porcelain.

She didn’t look at him.

Didn’t need to.

Benji let the silence spool out between them. He’d never been afraid of quiet. Not like the others. Not like the kids who filled every inch of space with noise so they wouldn’t have to hear the truth echo back.

He stood for a moment, mug still warm in his hand, watching her claim the couch like it was a battlefield and she was planting a flag.

And maybe she was.

He didn’t speak as he moved toward her. Just crossed the small space with that same soft-footed steadiness he always carried, like noise might shatter the fragile thing between them. He didn’t reach for her—not yet. Just sat beside her, the cushion sinking slightly beneath his weight, the space between them small but deliberate.

She didn’t lean in. Didn’t pull away.

Good.

Benji exhaled slowly, letting his head tip back against the cushion. The static of the TV still murmured from the corner, a low, ghostly lullaby that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with endurance.

He spoke into the hum, voice low, meant only for her.

“You know what I think?” he said. “I think the ones who see the rot are the ones who survive it. Not the ones who hide it. Not the ones who paint over it with matching curtains and graduation speeches.”

A pause. He turned his head just enough to glance at her—not directly, not fully. Just enough to let her know he was still here. Still listening.

“They call this place cursed,” he added. “But maybe it’s just honest. Maybe Shadyside doesn’t pretend. Maybe that’s why the truth shows up here in blood.”

The bottle shifted in her hand. His fingers twitched like they might take it, might lift it for her—but didn’t.

Instead, he looked down at the scar on his thumb, the one from when he was nine and punched a bathroom mirror after his dad called him nothing.

“I used to think we were the leftovers,” he said, quieter now. “The ones who didn’t get out. The ones who stayed because we weren’t strong enough to leave.”

He swallowed.

“But maybe we stayed because we were the only ones strong enough to look.”

Then—finally—he looked at her.

Not just sideways. Not halfway.

All the way.

And whatever he saw in her eyes was enough to pull him closer—not by much, just a fraction, just enough to shift the air.

“You’re not crazy, Heather,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You’re just one of the only people who still sees what’s real.”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t have to.

So he sat there beside her, still and silent and willing.

If she wanted to burn the night down, he’d be the match.

If she wanted to sit in the ash, he’d keep her warm.

And if she wanted to drink until the ghosts grew quiet, he’d pour.

Because whatever this was—curse, dream, truth carved in bone—it had brought her here.

And that was reason enough to stay.

Heather didn’t answer right away. She let the silence wrap around them like velvet—soft, heavy, laced with something dangerous.

She shifted her gaze to the trailer’s living room, eyes dragging slowly across the mismatched furniture and cigarette-burned rug. The off-kilter lamp in the corner, still stained with a ring of someone else’s bad decision. A stack of DVDs by the tiny TV, most missing cases. This place had lived. And it hadn’t asked permission.

It wasn’t pretty. But it didn’t lie.

She liked that about it.

She liked that about him, too—though she’d never admit it out loud. Not yet.

Heather took another sip from the bottle, letting the whiskey burn its way down like it had something to prove. Her lipstick left a faint print on the rim—one more mark on something already ruined.

She glanced at Benji out of the corner of her eye. He wasn’t looking. Good. She could study him without it costing her anything. The way he leaned back like he didn’t need to fight for space. The soft fall of curls over his temple. That scar on his thumb he always touched when he got too close to truth.

Heather hated how much she noticed.

How much she felt.

Because this—whatever this was—was dangerous. A boy with a scarred heart and no illusions, who saw straight through her curated sharpness. A boy who didn’t flinch at curses or ghosts or girls who bled glitter and vengeance. A boy from the wrong side of the tracks who made her feel like home and hellfire in the same breath.

She didn’t need more chaos—and yet here she was, curled into a couch that reeked of smoke and stories, sipping whiskey like it might anchor her to something real, and letting him get closer than anyone had in a long, long time.

Heather exhaled, slow and quiet, like releasing a secret. Her gaze flicked to the dark window, her own reflection staring back—war paint smudged, mascara clinging to the corners of her lashes like ghosts that refused to leave. There was grief in her bones. Grief and glitter and fury, all wrapped up in a girl too sharp to hold and too soft to let go.

“You ever think maybe the curse isn’t about what happens to us?” she said, voice low, smoky, as if it might vanish if she spoke too loud. “Maybe it’s about who we become because of it.”

She twisted the bottle in her hand, watching amber light catch on the rim. Her fingers curled tighter.

“Maybe it strips us down until all that’s left is the truth. And maybe that truth is ugly. Maybe it's terrifying. But at least it's ours.” She looked over at him then—really looked. Eyes like a storm right before it breaks. “And maybe that’s the most dangerous thing of all. Not the curse. Us.”

The words tasted too honest. Too close to bleeding. So she chased them with another drink, whiskey sliding over her tongue like sin.

Then, slowly, she extended the bottle toward him, the corner of her mouth tilting into something too sly to be sweet, too practiced to be innocent.

“Your turn, sinner,” she murmured, eyes gleaming. “Take a sip, and tell me what kind of ghost you’re gonna be.”

Benji didn’t reach for the bottle right away.

He just looked at her—really looked. The kind of look that didn’t skim the surface but sank straight through, like a stone dropped in a deep lake. Her voice still lingered in the air, thick as smoke and just as intoxicating. What kind of ghost are you gonna be?

He huffed a breath through his nose. Not a laugh. Not quite. More like disbelief at how easy it was for her to tear him open without even raising her voice.

“Shit,” he muttered, almost to himself. “You don’t hold back, do you?”

Then he took the bottle from her fingers, his skin brushing hers for the barest second. Static. Or maybe something worse. Something real.

Benji didn’t sip. He drank.

Not to impress her.

Not to match her.

Because she’d already stripped the moment down to the nerve, and what was the point of pretending when someone had already seen your bones?

He winced at the burn, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The bottle dangled between his fingers now, heavy and half-drained. He stared at it like it held memories instead of liquor.

“I think…” he started, voice quieter now, rough around the edges, “I think I’ve always been haunted. Even before the curse. Before the killings started again. Before the map.”

He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t—not yet. Not while the words were still finding shape.

“I used to lie awake at night thinking there was something wrong with me. Not broken. Just… wrong. Like I was born in a place already grieving me.”

He paused, thumb brushing that old scar like it was punctuation.

“When I was nine, I found my dad passed out on the kitchen floor. Bottle still in his hand. TV static blasting so loud I thought it was screaming. I didn’t cry. Just stepped over him, made myself cereal, and turned the volume down.”

A dry smile curled his lips. Bitter. Self-aware.

“Ghosts aren’t always dead people, Heather. Sometimes they’re just the parts of you no one checked on.”

He finally looked at her.

The storm was still in her eyes, but she wasn’t drowning. Not tonight.

Benji raised the bottle in salute, like a toast no one else would understand.

“So yeah. I’ll drink to that. To becoming something sharp and honest and fucked-up because the world gave us no other choice.”

He handed the bottle back, fingers lingering just a second longer than they needed to.

Then he leaned back, let his head tip toward the ceiling, and closed his eyes.

When he spoke again, it was almost too soft to hear.

“I think if I’m gonna be a ghost… I’d rather haunt with you.”

The words hung there—unguarded, unslick, not even trying to be pretty.

And for once, Benji didn’t try to take them back.

Heather’s laugh wasn’t loud, but it had an edge—like champagne poured over barbed wire.
“Hold back?” she drawled, one brow arched, sharp and glossy. “Darling, I was born with my claws out.”

But her voice softened just enough to curl around the moment, to make it less of a slap and more of a smirk wrapped in velvet. And when he finally reached for the bottle, brushing his fingers against hers, the contact lit her nerves like a string of faulty Christmas lights—too bright, too brief, and sparking somewhere deep in her chest.

His hand was rougher than she expected. Warmer too. Like someone who’d fought things she hadn’t seen yet. Her skin tingled in the wake of the touch, subtle but alive, and suddenly she was too aware of everything—how close they were, how quiet the trailer had gotten, how the smell of cheap whiskey and worn flannel was starting to feel like a lullaby instead of a warning.

Heather watched him drink. Not sip. Drink. And not like a boy trying to look cool—but like someone drinking to remember and forget in the same swallow. His throat worked around the burn, and she could almost feel the memory sliding down with it. God, he didn’t even flinch.

That did something to her. Something she didn’t want to name.

She listened to him speak, words like scraped knuckles and unswept corners of memory. His voice was low, rougher now, like it had to fight through ghosts to make it out. And as he talked about his father, about that static-screaming kitchen and the cereal made in silence, something in her heart pulled taut—too tight, too tender. Like maybe she’d pushed too far.

Shit. The booze. Was it cruel? Tone-deaf?
She hadn't even asked if whiskey was okay. Just assumed. Because that’s what she did—bulldozed through discomfort with swagger and eyeliner, never stopping to wonder if someone else might bleed for it.

But he didn’t flinch.
He drank.
He stayed.
He looked at her like he saw her. All of her.

And when he finally met her gaze again, it was like someone had opened a window inside her ribcage.

She expected the flutter—that light, breathless skip her heart did when someone touched a chord she didn’t know she had. But what came next surprised her: calm. A deep, almost holy stillness, like she could be here, in this burnt-out trailer with this burnt-out boy, and not have to armor up.

Heather took the bottle back without a word. Her lipstick stain still kissed the rim. She stared at it for a second too long, then tilted it back and took another sip—not to chase anything this time. Not to forget. Just to quiet the ache. To give herself a second before she said something that might crack the moment open.

She set it down on the floor with care, like she knew she couldn’t take much more and wasn’t trying to prove anything anymore. Not here. Not with him.

And then—

Without thinking, she reached out and brushed her fingers through the curls falling over his temple. Just once. Just a gentle sweep.

“You’ve got a tangle,” she murmured, voice gone soft, almost fond. Like they hadn’t just confessed trauma over whiskey in the ghost-light of a single flickering lamp.

Benji didn’t move. Didn’t pull away. Just opened his eyes slowly, and looked at her like she was both a threat and a lifeline.

It unraveled something in her.

Heather’s breath hitched—quiet, controlled, but real. And for a split second, she hated that he could do that to her. That one look could strip away the armor she’d spent years welding shut. He didn’t even try. He just was. Honest. Open. Undone in all the ways she understood too well.

So she didn’t kiss him.
Not yet.

Instead, she leaned back just enough to shift the air between them, but not enough to break whatever fragile spell they'd conjured in the dim light.

“Careful, Benji,” she said, voice low, almost teasing—but there was something raw just beneath it. “Look at me like that too long and I might start thinking you mean it.”

Her fingers found the edge of the cushion, nails dragging lightly over the fabric like she needed to ground herself. Like she wasn’t used to being looked at like that—like she was wanted without being conquered.

Benji didn’t breathe for a second.

Not when her fingers touched his hair like they had every right to. Not when she said his name like it was a warning wrapped in silk. And definitely not when she leaned back, just barely, like a wave pulling away from the shore only to crash harder the next time.

Careful, Benji.

He heard it like a dare. Like a whispered curse. Like a promise.

His pulse was loud in his ears, but everything else—the hum of the TV, the creak of the trailer settling, even the wind clawing at the windows—faded into background noise. All he could see was her. Lit soft by the off-kilter lamp, eyes gleaming like bruised stars, mouth still pink from lipstick and heat.

She was chaos and gravity all at once. The kind of girl you write into songs and warning labels. And yet here she was, dragging her nails across the cushion like she was the one who needed tethering. Like maybe he was the safe thing in the room.

No one had ever looked at him like that before.

And no one had ever made him feel like he might shatter something sacred just by blinking.

Benji turned slightly, shifting to face her more fully. Elbow propped on the back of the couch now, fingers still curled loose around nothing.

“Maybe I do mean it,” he said, voice rough from too much honesty and not enough air. “Maybe I’ve meant it since the first time you showed up at my door looking like a riot waiting for a reason.”

His mouth twitched—almost a smile. But it was too serious, too full to be smug.

“You don’t scare me, Heather.”

He meant it.

Even as his chest ached with how much she could hurt him. Even knowing she was the kind of person who left fingerprints on your soul and never really gave them back. Even with the ghosts howling outside and something older than fear watching them from the dark.

“I’ve seen what this town does to people,” he continued, softer now. “It eats them. Turns them into echoes. But not you.”

He leaned in—not all the way. Just close enough for the space between them to feel like a held breath.

“You still fight. Even when you’re breaking. Maybe especially then.”

He glanced down at her fingers on the cushion, then back up to her face.

“And maybe I like the way you look when you stop pretending not to feel everything.”

There it was. The truth.

The sharp kind. The kind that pressed in from all sides, but didn’t cut unless you pulled away too fast.

He didn’t move again.

Didn’t push.

Just let the moment hold. Let her decide what came next.

Because Heather Goodwin didn’t need to be rescued.
She needed someone who could stand in the fire with her and not run.

And Benji? He was already burning

Heather didn't flinch.

Her eyes stayed locked on his, and the glow in them shifted—less defense, more spark. Like flint catching on steel. It wasn’t often someone said things like that to her and meant them. Not to the real her. Not to the girl behind the lipstick and cheer routines and perfect GPA. The girl behind the blood-red legacy she hadn’t asked for and the shadow of a last name she wasn’t ready to speak aloud.

But Benji did. And it stirred something low and dangerous in her chest.

He saw her. Really saw her. Not just the glossed, polished Sunnyvale doll she showed to the world—but the jagged, hungry thing beneath. And he didn’t shrink from it.

He leaned into it.

And it thrilled her.

Heather’s lips parted just slightly, her breath catching in her throat before she let it go in a slow exhale. Confidence rose in her again, but not the kind she wore like armor. Not the weaponized pretty Sunnyvale had trained into her. This felt earned. Like a fire stoked instead of faked.

She reached out slowly, deliberately, and took his hand.

Fingers brushing against his palm, up to his thumb.

There.

The scar. The one he touched when he spoke the truth.

Her gaze didn’t leave his face as she traced the mark lightly with her fingertip. Then her voice—velvet smooth, heat-touched and low—slipped between them like sin wrapped in silk.

“Our pasts don’t get to define us, Benji.”

She turned his hand over in hers, lifted it to her lips, and kissed the scar gently—leaving behind the faintest stain of cherry-red lipstick like a mark of ownership. A sigil. A blessing.

“We do.”

Then she met his eyes again, wicked and wistful all at once.

“And for the record… I like the way you look too. Even if you’re everything I was raised to run from.”

Her smirk deepened—sultry, knowing, and just a little dangerous.

She leaned in, closing the space between them with deliberate slowness. Her fingers skimmed up his arm, anchoring lightly at his shoulder as she guided him back against the couch with the ease of someone who knew what she wanted—and wasn’t afraid to take it.

The whiskey in her veins dulled the fear but sharpened the hunger. It wasn’t about getting drunk. She wasn’t sloppy. She was in control.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, she wanted this.

Not because it looked good on paper.

Not because it made sense.

But because Benji Burroughs had looked past the siren-red glamour and fallen for the curse beneath—and that made her burn for him in return.

The others had chased the image. The reputation. The cheerleader.

But Benji?

He wanted the fire.

So Heather kissed him.

Not soft. Not tentative.

It was the kind of kiss that claimed and questioned all at once. The kind that tasted like whiskey and lipstick and warning. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling just enough to let him know she was there to play, but also to conquer.

The world could burn.

Shadyside could rot.

The curse could watch from the shadows and take notes.

Because tonight?

Heather Goodwin didn’t run from the fire.

She was the fire. And Benji?

He’d just lit the match.

Benji didn’t stand a chance.

The second her lips touched his—bold and breathless and burning—he knew. Knew he was too far gone to do anything but meet her in the flames.

It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t slow. It was the kind of kiss that carved names into ribs and rewrote every rule he thought he’d ever followed. Her mouth tasted like heat and whiskey and something older, something aching—like every wound he’d ever tried to hide had just been waiting for her to find it.

And god, she found him.

Her fingers in his hair, her body pressed against his like they were made of the same storm—it was more than touch. It was claiming. And he let her. Hell, he welcomed it. Because this wasn’t about control. Not really. It was about understanding. About meeting someone who didn’t flinch when they saw the wreckage.

Benji kissed her back like it meant something. Like it already meant everything.

His hands found her waist, slid up the back of her sweater, fingertips grazing warm skin and battle scars no one else had earned the right to touch. He didn’t pull her closer—she was already there. He just held her like he knew what this was. Knew what she was. Not a prize. Not a distraction.

A reckoning.

When they finally broke apart, breath tangled and hearts hammering against ribs like fists on locked doors, Benji didn’t speak right away. He just stared at her—lips kiss-bitten, eyes glowing like stormlight and sin—and knew he’d never want anything less than this.

And when he finally found his voice, it was low and ruined and honest.

“I wasn’t supposed to fall for you,” he whispered, like the truth had been burning its way out for weeks. “But I think I started the second you stopped pretending not to be dangerous.”

His thumb brushed the curve of her jaw, reverent and real. Like he wasn’t just touching her—he was memorizing her.

“And now?”

Benji leaned in, lips ghosting just beside hers, the words hot against her skin.

“Now I’d burn the whole damn town to keep you.”

Let the curse come.
Let the shadows rise.
Let Shadyside bleed.

Tonight, he had her fire.
And nothing scared him more than how much he never wanted to let it go.

Heather had been kissed before—by boys with perfect smiles and polished futures, boys who wanted to be seen kissing her more than they actually wanted her. But this? This wasn’t a kiss for show. It wasn’t some trophy moment beneath Friday night lights or a half-hearted make-out at a Sunnyvale party.

No, this kiss was different.

It wasn’t slow, but it wasn’t rushed either. It was deliberate. It was reverent. Benji kissed her like he knew her—not just the pieces she let people see, but the ones she kept buried. He kissed her like he wanted to earn his way past every defense she’d ever sharpened into a weapon. And Heather let him.

She melted into it for a moment longer, lips brushing his like a confession before finally pulling back, just enough to breathe—but not enough to break the heat still hanging in the air.

Her gaze met his, sharp and steady. Her lips were flushed, slightly parted, and a smudge of her lipstick now stained the corner of his mouth. A mark, a warning, a promise.

His words landed softly at first—but the weight of them settled fast.

“Now I’d burn the whole damn town to keep you.”

Heather’s heart stuttered. Not from the sweetness, but the danger in it. He didn’t know the truth. Not yet. He didn’t know that maybe—just maybe—it was her blood that brought the curse clawing back from the grave. That she wasn’t just haunted by it. She might be part of it.

What would he say if he found out?

Would he still burn it all down?

Would he burn her, too?

She didn’t let the fear show. Not when she could still feel the imprint of his mouth on hers—tender, bruising, reverent. It lingered like the ghost of a secret she hadn’t told yet.

For a moment, she teetered on the edge of it. The truth. The weight of her last name, heavy as a headstone, pressing against the back of her throat. She could tell him. Right now. She could spit out the poison, confess the rot that ran under her skin.

But she didn’t.

Not yet.

She swallowed it instead, like venom she’d learned to live with. Like everything else she wasn’t ready to give a voice.

Because this—them—was too new, too electric to crush beneath the sins of her bloodline. And if it all went to hell later, well… she’d burn with her lipstick still on.

So, Heather tilted her head, her signature smirk curling slow across kiss-swollen lips. Her voice was satin and blade all at once.

“Well,” she drawled, brushing a thumb across the lipstick mark she’d left on his mouth. “That was definitely not a dingy high school.”

Benji blinked, caught somewhere between dazed and wrecked, and she loved it—how he looked at her like she’d rewired the stars and didn’t even apologize for it.

“But I distinctly remember saying,” she continued, voice dipping low, “that our first kiss was supposed to come after a proper date. So unless this trailer comes with white linen and a dessert menu…”

Her eyes sparkled—daring, teasing, warm in that dangerous, flickering way only Heather Goodwin could manage.

“…you owe me dinner.”

And just like that, the heat between them twisted into something lighter. Still dangerous. Still deep. But colored now by playfulness, by something almost sweet.

Almost.

Because even when she flirted, Heather played with fire.

Benji grinned—and it wasn’t the kind of smirk he wore to deflect or distract. It was slower. Warmer. The kind of grin that said he was in trouble and didn’t care.

She’d just scorched the air between them, laid waste to every line he thought he wouldn’t cross, and now she was smiling at him like he was the one who’d lit the match.

God, he loved it.

Her thumb brushed his mouth, and he didn’t move. Didn’t dare. Just let her leave that touch the same way she’d left the kiss—soft, calculated, unforgettable.

“You want white linen?” he said, voice still wrecked from the fire they’d just walked through. “Babe, I’ve got two clean forks and an unopened pack of Oreos. That’s basically fine dining in Shadyside.”

He leaned in a little—not to kiss her, not yet—but to close the space again, to remind her he was still right there, and not going anywhere unless she made him.

“But you’re right,” he added, dropping the bravado just a notch. “You deserve more than whiskey and curse talk on a half-sunk couch.”

He took a breath. Let it settle.

“I’ll make it up to you. Real date. Real food. Might even shave. You’ll barely recognize me.”

He was teasing, yeah—but underneath it, the promise was real. He meant it. Every word. She wasn’t just some midnight confession or survival-fueled infatuation. She was real. And he wanted this—whatever this was—to last longer than just one night beneath flickering lights and heavy secrets.

Benji reached down, picked up the bottle from where she’d set it, and gave it a little swirl.

“But tonight?” He lifted it toward her in mock toast. “We start with Oreos and terrible TV.”

Then, more quietly—honestly, the way only she ever seemed to get from him—he added:

“And if the world ends tomorrow, at least I got tonight with you.”

He let the words settle, let her decide whether to catch them or let them fall.

Because if Heather Goodwin was the fire,
Benji Burroughs had just stepped into it willingly.
And damn it—he liked the burn.

Heather took him in—lazy grin, tousled curls, that devil-may-care glint in his eyes that made her want to kiss him stupid all over again—and decided, without a trace of hesitation, that yeah… this was a date. Maybe not the kind she used to pretend to enjoy. Not candlelit or choreographed. But real.

And it already meant more than half the ones she'd been dragged on by boys who drove sleek cars and dropped Daddy’s money on overpriced steaks before treating her like a prize they’d already won.

Benji hadn’t tried to win her.

He’d seen her.

She looked around the trailer—peeling corners, flickering light, that same godawful crooked lamp casting shadows like something out of a horror movie. But for the first time in a long time, she felt… steady. Like maybe comfort didn’t have to come dressed in polished perfection.

Maybe it looked more like this.

Like whiskey in mismatched mugs and the quiet hum of a boy who called her “babe” like it meant something. Like he meant it.

Her mouth curled into a slow, satisfied smile.

“I’ll have you know,” she said, voice dipped in velvet and daring, “I’ve had worse dates. Fancy ones. Five courses, valet parking, and still ended up bored to death and resisting the urge to stab someone with a salad fork.”

She leaned in, her nose brushing against his—not quite a kiss, not quite not—and let her fingers trail with deliberate ease over the line of his collarbone, down his chest, slow and exploratory, like she was reading him in braille.

“I like the way you say ‘babe.’”

A beat passed. She let her fingers pause just over the hem of his shirt, thumb brushing the bare skin at his hip.

“And I like this,” she added, glancing around again before meeting his eyes—confident, sharp, unwavering. “Not the décor. You’ve got some real serial killer chic happening in here.”

A smirk.

“But this. Us.”

She pulled back just enough to see his whole face, to let her hand rest lightly over his heart, which was beating fast beneath her palm.

“I don’t need roses and rooftop dinners. I need real.” Her voice dropped, the words warm and weighty. “And you, Benji Burroughs, are the most real thing I’ve had in a long time.”

She took the bottle from his hand, took a sip, then handed it back.

Then, with a wicked grin, she leaned in and gave him another kiss—slow and savoring, the kind that made promises.

When she pulled away, her lips just barely brushed his.

“Now go get those Oreos,” she whispered. “And don’t think I’m letting you off the hook. I still expect that other date.”

Benji just stared at her for a moment—absolutely leveled.

His breath caught somewhere between her fingers on his skin and the way her voice dipped when she said “us.” No one had ever said it like that before. Not like a question. Not like a maybe. Like a choice. Like a fact she’d carved out with her teeth and decided to keep.

He felt the kiss long after she pulled away—lingering like smoke and sugar and something he was already addicted to.

Get the Oreos, she’d said.

Benji grinned. Not the usual half-smirk he wore when he was trying to be clever. This one was real—soft, stunned, a little bit ruined. Because holy shit, he’d just been kissed like a secret worth keeping and told, flat-out, that he was the most real thing she’d had in a long time.

How the hell was he supposed to walk away from that?

He cleared his throat—half laugh, half disbelief—and gently nudged her knee with his.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, mock-formal, voice still a little breathless. “Oreos and bad television coming right up.”

He stood, a little too fast, brushing a hand through his curls like that would help him recover. It didn’t. He could still feel the heat of her fingers on his chest. Still taste her name somewhere in the back of his throat.

Benji crossed the trailer in three steps, opened the cabinet above the microwave with a little too much swagger, and pulled out the red-packaged prize like it was a trophy.

“I’d offer you options,” he said, tossing her a glance over his shoulder, “but it’s these or canned peaches, and I’m not trying to get dumped before our second kiss.”

He grabbed two chipped plates and turned back toward her—but paused when he caught the way she was watching him.

Not laughing.

Not teasing.

Just looking.

Like maybe she couldn’t believe this was real either.

Benji’s smile softened. His chest ached in that way he didn’t hate anymore.

“I meant it, you know,” he said quietly, meeting her gaze as he set the cookies down between them. “The date. The more. Whatever this turns into.”

He dropped onto the couch beside her, knee brushing hers again.

“I’m not going anywhere, Heather.”

Not even if the curse got worse.
Not even if the world kept bleeding.
Not even if she turned out to be part of it.

Because she’d looked him in the eye, called the wreckage between them real, and kissed him like it was the first truth either of them had spoken in years.

And Benji Burroughs?

He wasn’t letting go of that.
Not now.
Not ever.

She just watched him—leaning back on the couch like she owned the place, but with a stillness that betrayed the storm inside her. One leg crossed over the other, fingers absently toying with the edge of her plaid skirt. Her lipstick was slightly smudged from the kiss, and she didn’t care. Let it stay. Let it mark the moment.

Benji moved through the trailer like he belonged in it. Not just physically—though God, that didn’t hurt. The messy curls he’d raked back like they were something to be tamed, the sharp jaw softened by scruff, the tattoos peeking out under the sleeve of his worn tee. He wasn’t polished. He was real. All muscle and mischief and haunted eyes, like someone who’d lived through a story no one dared write down.

The old version of her might’ve imagined reshaping him—just enough polish to pass. But this version? She liked the grit. The edge. The way he didn’t apologize for the space he took up. She wouldn’t change him—not even a little. And the thought shocked her with how true it felt.

Most of Sunnyvale had spent years preaching that they were better than Shadyside. Cleaner, luckier, more… untouchable. But Heather had started to wonder—had any of them ever really crossed the tracks? Had any of them dared to sit in a place like this, with someone like him, and just listen?

Because she had.

And she didn’t feel lesser for it.

She felt awake.

She looked at Benji now—not the boy people warned her about, but the one who looked her in the eye and didn’t flinch when she cracked. Who made her feel like maybe the mess wasn’t something to be fixed, just felt.

The fear didn’t disappear—but it dulled. Faded into something warmer. Wanting him, wanting this, wasn’t a mistake she was waiting to regret.

It was the one thing that made sense in a world full of ghosts.

She reached for a cookie with all the grace of a girl raised on appearances, took a bite, and then flicked her gaze to him—intense, direct, impossible to look away from.

“You know what the worst part is?” she said, voice silk-smooth and laced with something darker beneath.

“I didn’t come here tonight expecting to feel anything real. I came because I was burning and thought maybe you’d burn with me.”

She tilted her head. The gold chain around her neck caught the light.

“But now I want to stay. And that scares me more than the curse ever did.”

She set the half-eaten cookie down. Leaned in.

“And if you ruin this,” she murmured, lips inches from his, “I will haunt you.”

A beat passed, sharp and intimate.

Then—her smirk.

“Just thought you should know.”

Benji didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He just let her words settle into his skin like smoke—slow, thick, inescapable.

If you ruin this, I will haunt you.

God, she didn’t even have to try. Every sentence she breathed was poetry wrapped in warning, sweet and sharp like bourbon poured over broken glass.

And he wanted every inch of it.

His gaze never left hers, not even as she leaned in, that smirk twisting her lips like a match being struck. His breath caught—just once—and then came back with a slow, chest-deep exhale. Not out of fear. Out of reverence.

Out of the overwhelming ache of knowing exactly how close he was to falling all the way in.

“You already do,” he murmured.

It wasn’t a line.

It was the goddamn truth.

Heather Goodwin had shown up at his door like a reckoning in glitter and shadows, and now she was curled up on his couch like she belonged there. Like the storm inside her had finally found its match.

Benji leaned in too—not to kiss her this time, but to meet the space where her breath touched his. Close enough to share air. Close enough to feel the moment tremble.

“I wasn’t scared of ghosts before you,” he said, voice low and steady, like a vow. “But if losing this is what haunts me…”

He brushed a knuckle under her chin, gentle and grounding.

“…then I’ll take the curse.”

Then, with a grin that cut the tension without breaking the gravity of it, he added:

“Besides, if I’m gonna be haunted, I want it to be by the hottest girl who ever threatened me with Oreos and existential dread.”

He picked up her half-eaten cookie, took a bite, and met her eyes with a flicker of challenge.

“Now shut up and watch this terrible movie with me. You already made me feel things—don’t make me miss the part where the killer gets stabbed with a lawn flamingo.”

Because he’d fight for her. Fall for her. Burn with her.

But right now?

Right now, she was here. She was his.

And that was enough to keep the ghosts at bay.

Heather didn’t speak.

Not right away.

Mostly because her brain short-circuited somewhere between “you already do” and “I’ll take the curse.”

Because… what the hell?

What was she supposed to do with that?

No one—no one—had ever said things like that to her and meant them. Not behind a smirk or a flirt or a dare. But soft. Solid. Like something you etched into bone instead of carving into the surface.

Benji wasn’t just some Shadyside bad boy with a trailer and a record collection. He was ruinously sincere in a way that cracked something open in her. The worst part? She liked it. Loved it. Drank it down like it was the last honest thing in the world.

And then—

The bastard stole her cookie.

Her half-eaten, claimed-by-lipstick, definitively hers cookie.

Heather blinked.

She should’ve slapped his hand away. Should’ve leveled him with a look that scorched the room. But instead?

She stared at him—at the smug glint in his eyes, at the curl of his grin—and something in her chest actually fluttered.

God help her, she let him.

Let him.

Even when he told her to shut up.

No one got away with that. Not in Sunnyvale. Not in her orbit. But with Benji? It wasn’t demeaning. It wasn’t dismissive. It was teasing and grounding and—annoyingly—kind of hot.

She let out a scoff. Light. Breathless. Half-laugh, half-surrender.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she muttered, curling into his side before she could second-guess it.

His arm wrapped around her without hesitation—like his body had been waiting for the cue. Like this had always been the plan. And maybe, somehow, it had been.

Heather let her head rest against his shoulder, warm and steady. Her hand drifted to his, lacing their fingers together, and when she found the scar again—rough and permanent and honest—she traced it with her thumb like it was sacred.

No words.

Just that.

A tether between what he’d lived through and who he’d become.

The movie played on—some grainy horror flick with zero budget and even less logic—and she let herself fall into the rhythm of it. His heartbeat against her back. The static from the old TV. The smell of sugar and warmth and boy.

Onscreen, the heroine screamed, wielding a ridiculous plastic lawn flamingo like it was Excalibur.

Heather arched a brow. “She’s holding it upside down,” she muttered. “Amateur.”

Benji chuckled, low and close.

And for once, Heather didn’t feel like she had to prove anything. Not be the smartest. Not the prettiest. Not the most in control.

She could just be.

Here. With him.

And maybe—just maybe—that was the most dangerous thing of all.

Because she didn’t want to run.

She wanted more.

Benji didn’t move.

Didn’t even breathe at first.

Because holy shit, Heather Goodwin was curled into his side like it was allowed. Like it was easy. Like he hadn’t spent the last few months convincing himself that this—her—was something he wasn’t allowed to want.

And now? Now her fingers were tracing the scar on his hand like it was hers, and he felt like a live wire under her touch.

He stared straight ahead at the dumbass movie, not seeing a single frame of it. Flamingo girl could be tap dancing with Satan himself, and he wouldn’t notice.

All he could feel was Heather. Her warmth. Her heartbeat. The subtle way she’d melted into him, like maybe she was finally, finally, done pretending she didn’t care.

He smiled, slow and quiet.

Because of course she noticed the lawn flamingo.

Of course she called it out.

He dipped his head toward hers, voice low. “You know, you could’ve just said you like bad horror movies and needed an excuse to get close.”

Her thumb paused on his scar.

And for a second—just a second—he wanted to tell her everything. About the night he got it. About the fight. About the fear. About the way he hadn’t let anyone touch that part of him since—not because it hurt, but because it meant something. Because he didn’t trust anyone not to treat it like a punchline.

But she hadn’t.

She’d just… held it. Touched it like it was part of him, not a flaw. Like it mattered.

He swallowed hard.

Then tilted his head so his mouth brushed her temple, voice softer now. “You’re lucky I’m the one falling, babe.”

A beat.

“Because I’m not gonna let you pretend like this doesn’t mean something.”

Not with her tucked against him like that.

Not with her hand in his like a promise.

He didn’t press for more.

Didn’t need to.

Because for the first time in forever, the ache in his chest didn’t feel like an empty thing. It felt like something beginning.

Heather could’ve said it.

Could’ve quipped that, yeah, maybe she liked terrible horror movies and violent lawn décor and emotionally available boys with good hands. That she’d orchestrated this whole thing—Oreos, whiskey, and proximity—just to get close.

And sure, she could’ve done that.

It would’ve been on-brand. Safe. A little smug, a little seductive. Classic Heather Goodwin misdirection.

But where was the fun in that?

She had more flair than that. Always had.

The truth was—she hadn’t planned this. Not this exactly. Not the ache in her ribs when he said falling. Not the way her thumb lingered over his scar like she’d known it before she touched it. Not the way her heart twisted when he said this means something and didn’t even flinch.

And the worst part? The most reckless, terrifying, and exhilarating part?

He was right.

It did mean something.

She wasn’t sure when it had started—somewhere between his first smart-ass comment in that haunted hallway and the night she dreamed his name like it could save her—but it was here now. Real. Heavy. Alive in her chest like a second heartbeat.

Heather Goodwin didn’t do real. She did sharp. She did show. She did power plays and precision.

But with Benji?

She felt seen. In the way no one had ever bothered to try.

Her fingers tightened around his. Not enough to hurt—just enough to say I hear you.

She was about to speak. To let it out, finally. All of it. The admission, the fear, the truth that had been clawing at her ribs for weeks.

And then—buzz.

Her phone lit up on the table. The name flashing across it in glowing, judgmental letters.

Brielle.

Sunnyvale royalty. A girl who still thought “wrong side of the tracks” was a punchline. A girl who would absolutely combust if she saw Heather here, curled up in a Shadyside trailer with a boy who called her babe like it meant something.

Heather stared at the screen. At everything it represented.

And then she silenced it.

No hesitation.

Just… done.

She turned back to Benji. His brow was furrowed slightly—concerned, but not insecure. He wasn’t asking. He was just waiting.

That was the difference.

So she exhaled.

“I didn’t come here to fall for you,” she said, voice low and clear, each word a decision. “I came here to drink and maybe kiss the hot guy who makes me feel things I don’t like admitting out loud.”

She turned fully toward him, eyes locked on his, heart loud and terrifying and steady.

“But I did. Fall. And I’m not sorry.”

A pause.

Then, softer, with none of the armor:

“I want this. You. All of it. Even the parts that scare me.”

She didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch. Just let the moment settle between them, real and radiant.

Then, slowly, deliberately, she leaned in.

Not to prove a point. Not to seduce or distract. Just because she wanted to.

Because he was still looking at her like she was made of constellations and wildfire, and for once—she didn’t want to be worshipped. She just wanted to be wanted.

Her fingers found the edge of his jaw, thumb brushing the stubble there like a spark. And then she kissed him.

Deep. Sure. Unapologetic.

It wasn’t a performance. It was a decision.

A claiming—not of him, but of herself. Of the girl who didn’t need a crown or a curated narrative to feel powerful. Just this boy. This couch. This night.

When she pulled back, breath uneven, her voice was barely more than a whisper against his lips.

“Still think I needed an excuse?”

Her smirk flickered. But this time, it wasn’t armor.

It was hope.

And she didn’t try to hide it.

Benji didn’t answer right away.

He couldn’t.

His breath had caught somewhere between her confession and the kiss that followed it—raw, reverent, realer than anything he’d ever been given. It wasn’t a show. It wasn’t a game. It was Heather Goodwin, finally herself, finally his, and every version of her felt like a miracle he hadn’t dared to wish for.

She kissed him like she was done running.
And he kissed her back like he was never letting her fall alone.

When she pulled away, when her voice trembled with truth and her smirk—that smirk—flickered with something softer, something unguarded… Benji knew he was in deeper than he’d ever been. And he didn’t care.

He didn’t need armor. He didn’t need a plan.
He just needed this.

He reached up, slow, deliberate, and cupped the side of her face like she was something precious and alive and a little bit dangerous. His thumb brushed her cheek, smudging a bit more lipstick, but she didn’t stop him. She just looked at him like she meant it—and Benji felt that look settle in his bones.

“Excuse?” he echoed, voice rough and breathless, like it had to fight its way out of his chest. “No. You didn’t need an excuse.”

A beat.

“You were always enough on your own.”

Another beat. Then—

“And just for the record…” He smiled, slow and certain, the kind that started in his chest and made its way all the way to his eyes. “I was never the dangerous one.”

He leaned in, not to kiss her again—not yet—but to press his forehead lightly against hers. Eyes closed. Steadying.

“You were.”

And somehow, that made him feel safer than he’d ever felt before.

Outside, the world could fall apart. The curse could claw its way back from the dirt. The past could rise up with all its secrets and scream her name.

But right now, in this trailer, on this half-sunk couch, with Heather Goodwin wrapped around him like a promise—

Benji Burroughs believed in something.

Not luck. Not fate.

Her.

He whispered it then, not as a declaration, not as a vow. Just as truth.

“I’m yours, Heather. No excuses.”

And for once, he wasn’t afraid.

Heather didn’t breathe for a second.

Couldn’t.

Because God, the way he looked at her—the way he said those things without flinching, without smirking, without shielding himself behind bravado—it knocked the air right out of her chest.

You were always enough on your own.

No one had ever said that to her before. Not without wanting something in return. Not without strings or standards or the expectation that she’d shapeshift to suit their needs.

But Benji wasn’t asking her to shrink.

He was choosing her—loud, messy, complicated her. Curse-shadowed and grief-slicked and still standing. And he was doing it like it was the easiest thing in the world.

She leaned into the heat of his hand on her cheek, lashes lowering as his thumb smudged more of her lipstick. He wasn’t careful with it, but he was careful with her.

And that? That was everything.

When his forehead pressed to hers, when he called her the dangerous one—Heather let herself smile. A real one. Small, unpolished, born from the soft ache of being seen.

“You say that like you’re not wrapped around me right now,” she whispered, teasing, but with no real bite behind it.

She could’ve said more. Could’ve tried to match his confession with some razor-edged quip or slow-burn sultriness, just to keep the power balanced.

But she didn’t want to.

Not right now.

Not when the moment was already perfect in its quiet unraveling.

Instead, she let the silence sit with them. Let it breathe.

And when he said I’m yours, something in her chest gave in. Not broke. Not shattered.

Unfolded.

Heather let out a long, slow breath. Like maybe—for once—she didn’t have to hold it all together.

She pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes shining under the dim trailer lights.

“Then shut up and hold me,” she said, voice light but trembling, just a little. “Before I start crying and ruin my whole aesthetic.”

Benji didn’t hesitate.

His arms wrapped around her, pulling her in until her cheek rested against his chest. His heart thudded steady beneath her ear, and she felt her own finally start to slow its sprint.

The TV flickered with low-budget blood and absurd one-liners, and Heather let herself sink into the warmth of his body, the comfort of the couch, the safety of this impossible, undeserved night.

And somewhere between the flamingo scene and the villain’s dramatic monologue—

She fell asleep.

Wrapped in Benji’s arms.

Still wearing red lipstick and secrets.

But dreaming, for once, of something better than survival.
Something that maybe—just maybe—looked a little like love.

Benji didn’t move.

Not when her breath ghosted against his collarbone. Not when her fingers curled lightly into the fabric of his shirt like she was anchoring herself. Not even when the credits rolled and the TV defaulted to static—white noise buzzing like background to the kind of peace he never thought he’d earn.

Because this?

This was everything.

Heather Goodwin—the storm, the spark, the girl who carried grief in her spine and wore defiance like perfume—had fallen asleep in his arms. And he wasn’t about to let the moment slip through his fingers.

She was soft now. Not weak—never weak—but soft. Like something sacred had been carved out of the chaos just for this. Just for her. Just for them.

Benji adjusted slightly, careful not to wake her, and pulled the old quilt from the back of the couch. He draped it over them both, tucking her in like it meant something. Because it did.

His fingers brushed her hair once—just once—and he let them linger a moment longer than necessary. It was a quiet reverence. A thank you whispered into the dark.

For trusting him.
For choosing this.
For staying.

He leaned back, head resting against the couch cushion, eyes fixed on the ceiling like it might hold the answers to all the shit waiting for them outside this trailer. The curse. The blood. The secrets she hadn’t told him yet but that he already knew were there, waiting to tear through the quiet.

But for now?

They had silence.
And breath.
And each other.

Benji let his eyes drift closed, one hand resting gently on her back, rising and falling with the rhythm of her sleep.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember,
he didn’t dream of running.

He dreamt of her.

She woke slowly.

Not with a jolt, not with panic, not with the ache of another nightmare biting at the edges of her sleep. Just warmth. A steady rise and fall beneath her cheek. The low hum of static. The faint scent of flannel and sugar and boy.

Benji.

Her lashes fluttered open.

The trailer was still half-draped in morning shadows, golden light peeking in through blinds that hadn’t been closed all the way. She was tangled in a blanket that didn’t smell like her perfume. Her lipstick was probably a war crime by now. And yet—

She’d never felt safer.

Heather exhaled slowly, barely shifting, just enough to clock the position: her leg hooked over his, her fingers still clutching his shirt like she hadn’t let go all night. She hadn’t even realized she’d done that.

God, Heather. Get a grip.

Still… her heart didn’t race like it usually did when the sun came up and reality crept in. It just beat. Steady. Soft.

She turned her face slightly into his chest, let herself stay there one second longer, and then reached blindly for her phone.

One new message from Brielle. She didn’t open it.

Instead, she texted Alice Mae:

> alive
not kidnapped
don’t send a search party
actually… don’t ask questions
i’m okay
…more than okay



She stared at the screen for a beat longer than she meant to.

Then she slipped the phone back onto the coffee table and started to ease herself out from under Benji’s arm with the practiced grace of a girl who’s done the morning-after vanishing act a few too many times.

But she hadn’t even made it to vertical before his voice cut through the quiet, rough and half-asleep:

“Where you goin’, babe?”

Heather froze.

Damn it.

She glanced over her shoulder. His hair was a mess. His eyes still heavy. He looked good in the kind of way that made her stomach flip—effortless, undone, hers.

So she smirked, mouth dry, throat catching around the lump that had no business being there.

“Relax,” she murmured. “I was gonna spare you the horror of seeing me like this. Bedhead, morning breath, and all.”

A beat.

“But if you must suffer, I guess I can stay.”

And deep down?

She wanted to.

God help her, she wanted to.

Benji blinked slowly, eyes still hazy with sleep, lashes heavy and soft. The early light cut across his cheekbones, catching in the tangle of his curls, and for a second he just stared at her—like waking up next to her was something he never thought he’d earn, and now that it was real, he didn’t want to breathe too hard and scare it away.

She was trying to slip out like a ghost. Soft-footed and guilty. But he’d felt the shift. The moment her warmth began to pull away from his chest, his body noticed—and so did his heart.

So he’d said the first thing that slipped past his lips. Honest. Raw. Sleep-heavy.

“Where you goin’, babe?”

And now she was smirking. Half-deflecting, half-daring him to call her bluff. God, she was so her even in the morning—bedhead and sarcasm and that steel-sweet glint in her eye like she was ready to bolt but hoping someone might ask her to stay.

He pushed up on one elbow, blanket slipping off his shoulder, hair a wreck, eyes still half-lidded as he looked at her. Tired, warm, wrecked in the best way.

“Okay,” he murmured, voice low and rough with sleep. “You can go.”

A pause. He reached out, fingers brushing her knee like an anchor—not a tether, not a trap. Just contact.

“But you gotta text me when you get home. Even if home’s not where you wanna be.”

Another beat.

Then, with the softest grin—one that didn’t ask her for anything she wasn’t ready to give—he added:

“I worry. Deal with it.”

And that was it. No pressure. No guilt. Just Benji Burroughs, half-awake and wholly hers, giving her the choice without making her feel like she had to run from it.

He dropped his hand again, laid back into the couch, and closed his eyes.

But not before he whispered, just loud enough for her to hear:

“…you looked good last night. But you look better like this.”

Because it wasn’t about makeup or masks.
It was about her. Always had been.

And if she stayed, if she crawled back into his arms?

Well—he’d already made room.

You can go.

The words sliced through her.

Quick. Clean. Brutal.

For one split, searing second, the fire in her chest surged—rage licking at her ribs before she could stop it. Of course. He’d gotten what he wanted. The kiss. The night. The girl. And now he was done. Just like the rest of them.

She almost stood. Almost threw the blanket off like it didn’t matter and muttered something cold and final—because Heather Goodwin never begged to stay.

But then his hand brushed her knee.

Light. Steady. Present.

Not possessive. Not pleading. Just… there.

His voice followed—gentle, not dismissive. That soft, gravel-rough murmur that always knocked her off-balance in the worst and best way.

"But you gotta text me when you get home. Even if home’s not where you wanna be.”

Something in her chest cracked wide open.

And when he said I worry. Deal with it—Heather felt the anger dissolve, replaced by something so much worse. Something tender. Unbearable.

Because he wasn’t like the others. He wasn’t trying to keep her, trap her, twist her into a version he could show off.

He just cared.

And damn it, he didn’t even have to try to be handsome. Messy curls, lazy grin, voice all sleepy and warm—he looked like sin wrapped in comfort, and if Sunnyvale couldn’t see it, they were blind. Or stupid. Or both.

She saw it.

And that? That was the problem.

She turned her head toward the trailer door. The morning light caught on the edge of it, and for a second, it looked like a split path—two lives standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting for her to pick.

She could walk out. Go back to being Heather Goodwin™—Sunnyvale’s sharpest secret, the girl with the perfect smile and the bloodline no one could ever know. She could lie, again. Pretend this meant nothing.

Or…

She could stay.

Stay in the mess. In the truth. In him.

Even if the aftermath would be a slow-motion catastrophe. Even if people talked. Even if her father’s voice was already screaming in her head.

Heather looked back at Benji. Really looked.

And that was that.

She stalked across the small space in two steps, swung one leg over his hips, and straddled his lap without a word. His eyes opened immediately—still hazy, but curious now, tracking her every move.

She smirked, letting her fingers trail up his chest, slow and teasing, as she leaned in just enough for her hair to brush his cheek.

“Rise and shine, Burroughs. I figured if I’m already ruining my reputation, I might as well do it thoroughly.”

A beat. Her lips curved wickedly.

“So… do I get breakfast before or after you pretend not to be obsessed with me?”

Benji blinked up at her, lashes still heavy with sleep, but his grin kicked in fast—lazy, crooked, dangerously fond.

He didn’t even try to hide it.

Because damn, there she was. Full force. No armor, no filters, just Heather in all her wildfire glory, straddling his lap like she’d just declared war and invited him to lose.

And yeah. He’d lose to her a thousand times and never complain.

His hands found her hips without hesitation, thumbs brushing the hem of her skirt with a kind of reverence disguised as casual touch. Like he knew she could bolt any second and was just trying to memorize what it felt like to have her this close.

At her line—do I get breakfast before or after you pretend not to be obsessed with me?—he let out a slow, wrecked kind of laugh.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he rasped, voice still dipped in gravel and sunrise. “You think I’ve been pretending?”

He leaned in, mouth brushing just below her jaw, teasing, reverent, dangerous in the way only honesty could be.

“I’ve been obsessed since the first time you threatened to kick my ass in those boots.”

One hand slid up her spine, warm and grounding.

“And for the record? Breakfast is happening after.”

His teeth grazed her neck, not enough to mark—yet—but enough to make a promise. Then he pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, that storm-light gaze of hers drawing every truth out of him whether he meant to say it or not.

“No pretending. Not with you.”

A beat.

“Besides,” he added, smirking just a little, “you’re not ruining your reputation. You’re rewriting it.”

Then, with a look that belonged to no one else but her—

“You staying or not, Goodwin?”

He already knew the answer.
But damn, he loved watching her say it with fire in her eyes.

Heather’s breath hitched.

Not dramatically. Not in some girlish gasp of surprise. Just quietly—internally—like her heart had shifted its weight to one side and left her unbalanced in the best, most terrifying way.

Because this wasn’t a game anymore.

Wasn’t some temporary rebellion against Sunnyvale. Wasn’t a fling meant to distract her from the curse that still pulsed beneath her skin like a bruise that never healed.

This was real.

Benji—half-asleep, grinning like a man who’d already decided to love her even if it killed him—wasn’t a detour. He was the goddamn fork in the road. And she’d stepped off the path, heels first.

She’d have to tell him eventually.

About her last name. About the bloodline. About the way her dreams had been changing—getting louder, darker, closer. About how sometimes she wondered if the curse wasn’t just calling to her… but through her.

Because nothing about this would stay simple. Not for long.

And yet, here he was.

Palms warm on her hips. Eyes soft, reverent, infuriatingly unafraid. Touching her like he didn’t need the truth to choose her. Like he already had.

Her heart rebelled—demanding a different future than the one she’d been bred for. Demanding him.

She tilted her head just slightly, lips brushing the shell of his ear, voice low and lethal and soaked in velvet.

“Wouldn’t be much of a reputation rewrite if I bailed now, would it?”

A pause. Then, slow and deliberate, her hand slid up under his shirt—fingertips brushing the bare skin of his stomach, tracing just beneath his ribs with a softness that belied the fire behind her eyes. Before retreating. Not yet.

“Besides…” Her smile curved slow and sharp, all heat and wickedness. “If you think one neck graze and a gravel-voiced compliment gets you that kind of breakfast…”

She leaned in like she was offering something precious—only to veer left at the last second, pressing a kiss just below his mouth. Not a surrender. A challenge.

Kisses came from cheap dates.
But this? Rewriting her whole life?

That cost more.

She pulled back, hair falling like fire over her shoulder, pulse steady and alive with certainty.

“I’m staying, Benji.”

Her voice was velvet over steel. A promise she wasn’t afraid to keep.

God help us both.

Benji watched her—hair wild, lips smug, eyes lit with something dangerous and divine—and for a second, he just let himself have it. The moment. The girl. The gravity of knowing she’d said yes to him. To this.

Then he leaned forward, slow and deliberate, lips brushing the line of her jaw in a touch that wasn’t about seduction—it was about having her here. Alive. Real. Chosen.

“Alright, reputation-wrecker,” he murmured, voice low and thick with sleep and something deeper. “Back to bed.”

He shifted, arms sliding around her waist as he stood—lifting her with practiced ease and a grin that said you’re not getting away now, so don’t bother trying. She squeaked, but he didn’t give her time to protest. He just carried her the three short steps to the bed tucked behind the curtain that barely separated it from the rest of the trailer.

Benji dropped her gently onto the mattress, the worn flannel sheets rumpled and warm from the night before. He climbed in right after her, pulling the quilt over both of them in one smooth tug.

Then he wrapped himself around her. No hesitation. No asking.

One arm slung around her middle, his hand finding its home beneath the hem of her shirt, palm warm against bare skin. His other arm cradled her head, pulling her against his chest like he couldn’t bear a single inch between them.

“See?” he whispered against her hair. “Much better.”

He kissed the crown of her head, soft and slow, like a secret he wasn’t ready to say out loud yet.

And then, lips still against her temple:

“You stay right here, Goodwin. Just for a little longer.”

A beat.

“Forever’s negotiable.”

She should have protested.

Should’ve groaned dramatically about needing food. Or complained that she was supposed to be the one in control here. Or at the very least, pointed out that lifting her like that without warning was grounds for a full-on glitter-fueled vendetta.

But instead?

All that came out was a soft gasp—the kind she hated giving anyone—and then a startled laugh as he carried her like she weighed nothing. Like this was normal. Like she did this all the time: got swept up and tucked away like something precious instead of something sharp.

And God help her… she loved it.

Not just the way his arms fit around her. Not just the way he moved like her body had already mapped itself onto his.

But the way he didn’t hesitate.

No second-guessing. No posturing. Just action. Just care.

The flannel sheets hit her back with a sigh, and before she could make a joke about his decorating skills—or lack thereof—he was climbing in beside her, that damn quilt pulled over them like a cocoon.

And then he was everywhere.

Arms wrapped tight. Chest solid against her spine. One hand splayed under her shirt like it belonged there—like he didn’t care about the curses or the consequences, just her heartbeat under his palm.

Heather let herself melt.

Only a little. Just enough to let her head fall back against his shoulder, her legs curling instinctively toward his.

She could still make fun of him later. Still claw her way back to control with a well-placed jab or an outrageous demand.

But right now?

She didn’t want control.

She just wanted this.

His voice drifted over her, rough and warm against her scalp.

You stay right here, Goodwin. Just for a little longer.
Forever’s negotiable.

She rolled her eyes, just barely, a smirk tugging at her lips.

“If this is your idea of negotiation,” she whispered, voice drowsy and full of fond warning, “you should know I’m not above biting.”

Then, with a slow twist of her body, she turned to face him.

Their legs tangled. Her hand slipped up to rest lightly on his chest, her thumb brushing against the curve of his collarbone. Her eyes—still shadowed with sleep but alive with mischief—locked onto his with that same fire she always wielded like a blade.

“But if you keep looking at me like that,” she added, voice lower now, silkier, “I might forget I’m supposed to make you work for it.”

A beat passed. Her smirk softened at the edges—still dangerous, still her, but kissed with something warm and wrecking.

This wasn’t surrender.

It was choice.

And for the first time in her life… she wanted to stay exactly where she was.

The floor was cold beneath her feet.
Not trailer-floor cold—concrete. Earth.
Damp like it remembered something.

The night was still.

But inside her head, it was screaming.

Whispers like rusted chains. Echoes too close to be echoes. And that name—his name—scraping along the inside of her skull like a knife being dragged across stone.

Tommy. Tommy. Tommy Slater.

She didn’t mean to say it. Didn’t feel her lips move.

But the name left her anyway, over and over, a slow murmur falling from her mouth like a prayer turned inside out.

Tommy. Tommy. Tommy Slater.

She was standing in the woods.

She thought.

Or maybe it was behind the trailer. Maybe it didn’t matter.

There were trees.

Or shadows.

Or maybe just the memory of both.

She couldn’t feel her hands.

She couldn’t remember how she got there.

There was dirt under her nails, cold air in her lungs, and something humming beneath her skin like blood caught in barbed wire.

She wasn’t dreaming.

She was inside the dream.

But she was awake.

Sort of.

And Tommy’s name kept spilling from her mouth.

Like it had nowhere else to go.

Tommy. Tommy Slater. Tommy Slater.

Until—

“Heather?”

A voice, sharp and human, cut through the night.

Real.

Benji.

She blinked.

The trees didn’t vanish. The dark didn’t fade. But the pull in her spine loosened just enough for her to shiver.

She turned—slow, like her bones weren’t fully hers—and there he was, barefoot on the porch, sweatpants and sleep still clinging to him, fear carved across his face like a new kind of scar.

She looked down.

Her feet were covered in dirt.

She didn’t know when she’d left the trailer.

Didn’t know how long she’d been gone.

Her lips were still moving when he reached her.

The name—Tommy—still hovering on her breath like fog.

And suddenly, she was freezing.

And she couldn’t breathe.

And she wasn’t sure who she was anymore.

Benji was running before he even realized it.

Bare feet slapping against the wood of the trailer steps, heart in his throat, dread boiling beneath his ribs like it had been waiting for this moment.

Heather’s voice had dragged him out of sleep—barely a voice, really. Just a whisper. A repetition. A chant. Over and over again.

Tommy Slater. Tommy Slater.

By the time he made it outside, the night had swallowed her.

And then—there she was.

Standing barefoot in the dirt like something had pulled her out of herself and left her body behind. Her lips moving. Her eyes unfocused. Her whole body still except for the way her fingers twitched like they were remembering how to dig.

“Heather,” he breathed again, softer this time.

He didn’t reach for her right away. Didn’t touch her. Just stepped into her space, close enough that the heat from his skin might pull her back.

“Hey,” he murmured, voice low, coaxing. “It’s me. You’re okay. You’re here.”

But she didn’t look okay.

She looked haunted.

Her eyes were glassed over, her breath coming too fast, like her lungs didn’t believe the air was real. And that name—that fucking name—still hung on her lips like it was stitched there.

Benji’s throat tightened.

He took a breath. Stepped in.

Slow.

“Look at me, Heather.”

He cupped her face, gentle but firm, tilting it until their foreheads touched, grounding her in the only way he knew how.

“Come back.”

He closed his eyes, pressed his voice into her like a tether.

“You’re not in the woods. You’re not in a dream. You’re here. With me.”

His thumb brushed over her cheek, her jaw, the corner of her mouth—chasing the name away like he could wipe it from her lips before it sank any deeper.

“You’re Heather Goodwin, and you’re stronger than whatever this is. Whatever it’s trying to do to you.”

A beat. His voice cracked just slightly.

“And I’m not letting it take you.”

He felt her shiver then—just the smallest tremor, but hers. Real.

And that was all he needed.

Without waiting for permission, Benji wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest like she might disappear if he let go. His palm pressed flat against her spine. His heartbeat, frantic, matched hers beat for beat.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, burying his face in her hair.

“I’ve got you.”

And he wouldn’t let go.

Not tonight.
Not ever.

She was in two places at once.

One foot in the clearing behind Benji’s trailer.

One foot somewhere else—older, darker.

Somewhere that smelled like rust and rot and wet earth packed tight over shallow graves.

She didn’t hear him at first.

Not really.

Not Benji. Not her name.

What she heard was the thud of footsteps through pine needles and underbrush.

Fast.

Frantic.

Running.

She heard breathing—ragged, desperate.

She turned toward the sound.

Saw them.

Two shadows bolting through the trees. One tall. One smaller. Familiar shapes—but she didn’t know them, not here. Not now.

Behind them—

Tommy.

A flash of a burlap sack. The glint of a blade.

He was swinging with purpose. Rhythm. Joy.

And she felt it.

Felt it like it was her own arm cutting through the dark.

The way the axe wanted bone.

The way it sang when it struck.

She staggered back.

No—not back. Not her body.

Her mind. Her self. Whatever was left.

She was inside him. With him. Of him.

And she could feel the others, too.

Ruby’s laughter like glass breaking.

Ryan Torres’s teeth grinding in time with a pulse that wasn’t hers.

Billy Barker dragging his bat behind her skull like an echo.

She was tethered to them.

Tied in.

A part of the hive.

No.

She tried to scream, but her mouth only gave breath to Tommy’s name again.

She was slipping.

Falling.

Being shaped.

And then—

Warmth.

Hands.

Her name.

Not in the woods. Not in the dream.

“Come back,” Benji whispered, close enough to anchor her.

His forehead touched hers. His hands cradled her face like she was something breakable—something worth saving.

Her lips twitched.

She felt the curse pull—a final tug like a leash snapping taut.

But she clung to the sound of his voice.

To his heartbeat.

To the pressure of his arms wrapping around her like he could hold back hell.

And somehow—

Somehow, she blinked.

She breathed.

And when she opened her mouth again, the name that came out wasn’t Tommy.

It was his.

“Benji…”

Her voice was shredded. Not a whisper. A wound.

But it was hers.

She blinked again. Realized her cheek was pressed to his chest, his shirt damp against her skin. Her fingers curled tight in the fabric.

Her legs felt numb.

Her mouth was dry.

“I, um…”

She tried to laugh.

It came out wrong.

“I think I just sleepwalked into a slasher flick. Five stars. Would not recommend.”

Benji didn’t laugh.

Neither did she.

Because she was still shaking.

And the truth was still there—quiet and horrible beneath the joke.

This is happening.

It’s getting worse.

And next time, you might not come back.

But for now—

For tonight—

She was in his arms.

And she was still herself.

Barely.

Benji held her like he was afraid to breathe wrong.

Like if he let go—even for a second—she’d slip back through his fingers and into the dark she’d just clawed her way out of.

Her voice—his name—shattered something in him. Not because it was broken. But because it wasn’t. Because it made it back. Because she made it back.

“Hey,” he said softly, breath stalling against her hair. “Hey, I got you.”

His hands moved—slow, steady—one curling around the back of her neck, the other flattening over her spine again like he could press her soul back into place.

She was freezing.

She was shaking.

But she was here.

And God, the sound of her trying to joke, trying to be Heather through the rubble of that nightmare?

It undid him.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t call her dramatic. Didn’t say it was just a dream, because it wasn’t.

He knew.

And it wasn’t just the dirt on her feet or the way her fingers clutched his shirt like a lifeline.

It was the look in her eyes.

That deep, awful knowing that something had tried to pull her into it. Not as a victim.

As a vessel.

Benji pulled back just enough to see her face, thumbs brushing the hollow beneath her cheekbones, gentle like he was scared she might flinch.

“You’re not alone in this,” he said, voice low but certain.

“You feel them? Fine. Fuck ’em. Let them rattle in the corners. Let them scream. You look at me.”

He leaned in, forehead to hers again, grounding.

“You’re not theirs.”

A pause. His breath caught.

“You’re mine.”

He didn’t mean it possessive. He meant it true.

Then softer, more broken, more Benji:

“And I don’t care if I have to sit on this porch every goddamn night with salt lines and baseball bats and a flashlight in my teeth—I’m not letting them take you.”

He swallowed hard, emotion catching in his throat before he forced it down.

“You hear me, Goode girl? They don’t get you.”

A beat.

“I do.”

Then he scooped her up—gently, carefully—because she was still shaking and her legs looked like they’d forgotten how to stand. His bare feet carried her back across the cold earth, up the steps, into the warm, quiet dark of the trailer.

He kicked the door closed with his heel.

Cradled her like she was holy.

And whispered—because maybe she needed to hear it, maybe he needed to say it:

“You’re still you.”

And he wasn’t going anywhere.

The trailer was still.

Too still.

Benji had tucked her in like she was something breakable, like the bed might swallow her if he didn’t hold her together long enough for her bones to remember how to be bones.

The warmth of the blanket barely touched her skin.

She could still feel the dirt.

Still feel the trees in her lungs. The axe in her palm. The breath that wasn’t hers.

Benji was close—close enough that his presence wrapped around her like armor—but it didn’t stop the cold threading through her.

That kind of cold didn’t come from outside.

It was inside.

Rooted.

Burrowing.

She lay on her side, facing the trailer wall, one hand curled near her mouth like it might catch the whisper before it left.

But it was gone now.

Tommy.

She hadn’t just dreamed him.

She’d been him.

She saw through his eyes. Felt the weight of the axe. Felt the thrill of it.

And that was the part that made her stomach twist hardest.

Not the fear.

The rush.

She tried not to blink too hard. Tried not to think about what that meant.

And then—her phone buzzed.

A low vibration on the nightstand. Too soft, but it hit her like a jolt anyway.

Her arm felt heavy as she reached for it, screen too bright in the dark.

Caleb.

Her heart dropped before she answered.

And as he spoke—

Everything stopped.

The world inside the trailer faded.

Because his words weren’t just confirmation.

They were echoes.

Of what she’d seen.

Of what she was.

Tommy had chased two people through the woods. She hadn’t seen faces—but she’d felt fear that wasn’t her own. She remembered the flash of long hair. The panic in uneven footsteps. One fast. One faster.

And now Caleb was saying the names.

Saying what happened.

Saying who Tommy had gone after.

Heather’s vision narrowed. Her lungs forgot how to expand.

Alice.

She’d seen Alice.

She hadn’t known it was her.

And that was the worst part.

She’d seen Tommy raise the axe. She’d felt the way he wanted it to land. She almost wanted it too.

And it was Alice.

It was Alice Mae.

She didn’t remember hanging up.

Didn’t remember when Benji’s hand found hers again, warm and steady and full of something she didn’t feel anymore.

All she could hear was her own voice from earlier.

Tommy. Tommy Slater.

Like she’d called him.

Like she’d sent him.

The hive was louder now.

Not constant—but close.

Breathing in tandem just under her skin.

She clutched Benji’s hand tighter, fingers curling so hard her nails bit into his knuckles.

“I saw it,” she whispered. “I saw it before it happened.”

Her voice was hollow. Cracked.

“I didn’t know it was her.”

A pause.

Then, quieter:

“What if next time… I do?”

The thought lodged like glass behind her ribs.

Because the line between seeing and becoming was thinner than she’d thought.

And it was getting thinner by the second.

Benji didn’t flinch.

Not when her grip turned punishing. Not when her voice broke on the word her. Not when her breath hitched like she was about to splinter into someone else again.

He let her.

Let her dig in. Let her shake. Let her say it.

Because the alternative—the silence that swallowed her after Caleb’s call, the thousand-yard stare, the absence in her eyes—that had terrified him more than anything the curse could conjure.

But this?

This was Heather.

Even if her voice was hollow.

Even if she was holding him like she wasn’t sure which one of them was real.

She was here.

He shifted closer behind her, chest against her back, arm sliding around her waist. Not like a shield.

Like a tether.

“You didn’t send him,” Benji said, voice low and steady against her neck. “Don’t do that. Don’t carry something that’s not yours.”

But he knew it didn’t matter.

Because that’s what she did—carried things.

Bloodlines. Guilt. Darkness.

He exhaled, breath brushing her skin, warm where she was cold.

“You saw it because you’re tied in,” he murmured. “But that doesn’t make you them. That doesn’t make you the blade.”

His hand found hers again. Fingers laced. Knuckles blood-warm.

“I don’t care how close the hive gets. I don’t care if it’s breathing down your goddamn throat.”

His voice tightened. Fierce now. Almost shaking.

“You’re still you. Heather Goode. Not the curse. Not the sickness. You. And you came back tonight. That matters.”

A beat.

Then softer:

“You’ll keep coming back. Even if I have to drag you by your hoodie every time.”

He leaned in, pressed a kiss to her shoulder—light, grounding.

“I don’t care what you saw. I don’t care how real it felt. I care that you’re here. And that you told me.”

Another pause. His voice cracked, just once.

“That means I can fight with you.”

He let the silence sit after that. Let it settle.

Then—

“If it ever feels like too much,” he whispered, “you say my name. Not his.”

A beat.

“You say Benji. Say it a hundred times. Say it like a prayer if you have to.”

He tightened his arm around her. Held on.

“You pull me into the dream, Goode girl. I’ll fucking drag you out of it every time.”