Page 89 of Fang Fatale

She’s looking at the floor now, and I realize it’s the first time she’s let herself admit she’s tired. The first time she’s allowed herself to want rest that isn’t a product of fear or necessity. I suspect that “nice” is a foreign language to Birdie Longfellow—and that makes me want to give her a week of peaceful mornings.

A year.

A decade.

If only so she learns the taste of it.

I busy myself with the keys, the bags, the performative shuffling. Anything to avoid the urge to touch her. Which is a new one for me; usually, I have an ironclad rule about keeping my hands (and teeth) to myself unless explicitly invited. But Birdie is an exception. Somewhere between braiding her hair, making her toast, and carrying her through the woods, she stopped feeling like a client and started feeling dangerously like home.

She gathers her things. I grab the duffel. We head out where my truck sits scowling at us like an ornery guard dog.

The air is saturated with that soft, scruffy fog that settles on Blackthorn Bay only after a storm. The ground squelches underfoot. I try to step around a puddle and, predictably, miss.

My boot lands squarely in the center, splattering mud against the hem of my jeans.

I hear Birdie snicker behind me.

“Smooth,” she says. “Very suave.”

“Just practicing for my next impression: hapless Midwestern dad.”

She arches an eyebrow.

“Needs more fanny pack.”

“She’s ruthless,” I mutter to no one in particular.

When we get to the truck, I open the passenger door and gesture for her to get in.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she stands, eyes fixed on the edge of the woods, like she’s expecting someone to come out of them.

“Is it weird,” she says quietly, “that I don’t want to leave?”

“Not even a little.”

I lean into the cab, sliding the duffel beneath the seat.

“So many people come to Blackthorn planning to leave.”

“And?”

“They rarely do.”

She looks up at me, her chin tilted in that way that signals she’s about to say something important.

“I’ve never felt...safe,” she admits. “Not really.”

She swallows.

“Not before last night.”

The words hit me harder than Mason ever managed.

“You did,” she continues softly. “You made me feel safe.”

Her cheeks pinken.