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This is about her.

I nod once. “Let’s go.” I’m already on my feet, striding towards the door, snatching up the keys as I go.

The drive back to her place is long. Too long. The roads twist and turn, the wind howling outside like it’s got a personal vendetta against us. The storm’s already started to kick up a notch, sheets of rain hammering against the windscreen, and the deeper we go into the countryside, the worse it gets.

Fitting, really.

It matches the fucking mess in my head.

This is a bad idea. I know it. Dane knows it. Xar definitely knows it, but that hasn’t stopped him from gripping the wheel like he’s ready to punch through it.

“We should’ve left earlier,” he mutters, eyes fixed on the road. “Visibility’s shit.”

Dane snorts. “You were the one who wanted to check the generator first.”

“We might be stuck out here. Thought it made sense to be prepared.”

I shake my head, shifting in my seat. “If we get snowed in, I’m eating one of you.”

Xar doesn’t even look at me. “Dane’s got more muscle.”

“Fuck off,” Dane mutters. “Snow isn’t even forecast, dickheads.”

I smirk, but it fades fast. Because despite all the bickering, the truth is sitting heavy between us.

We’re going back to her.

And none of us know what the hell we’re walking into.

I can already feel the rejection brewing, can already hear her sharp little voice telling us to get lost, and for some reason, I can’t fucking wait to see her again anyway.

Pathetic.

I’m pathetic.

When we finally pull up outside the lane that leads to the farmhouse, the place looks different. There’s a fallen tree barring part of the driveway. Xar kills the engine. None of us move.

“Think she’ll let us in this time?” Dane asks.

“Doubt it,” I say, my tone deliberately flat.

Xar exhales through his nose, gripping the wheel like he wants to say something but doesn’t. Instead, he pushes the door open, stepping out into the freezing wind and rain, and we follow.

When the house comes into view, the door is shut tight, the curtains drawn, like she’s gone right back to barricading herself in. Like she’s been waiting for us to come back just so she can keep us out.

Maybe she’s done this for the storm and not because of us.

Yeah, right.

And that’s when I see it.

A rope, stretched low across the path, almost invisible under the scattered leaves.

I catch it just in time, stepping over it easily. But Xar?—

Snag.

The rope jerks, and Xar stumbles before catching himself, muttering a sharp curse.