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He met my gaze, and for a long, weighted moment, said nothing.

Then he smiled—small, fierce, and real.

“It’s perfect.”

The dam inside me cracked, but didn’t break. Not yet.

I turned away, busying myself with unstrapping my pack, hiding the sudden sting of tears.

Cyclone didn’t push. He just moved through the house, checking windows, securing doors, anchoring me in the present with every steady, careful action.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I let myself hope.

Not just for survival.

But for something more.

We spotted the rental where the man said it would be. Before we did anything, we needed to go to the grocery store and get food and cleaning supplies.

16

Jude

The small ranch sprawled out as a faded silhouette against the desert’s burning orange horizon.

We didn’t speak as we drove up the dirt road, as the rental truck’s tires kicked up dust clouds. It wasn’t until we reached the house that the real work began.

We unloaded our minimal gear and the groceries we bought. We set everything on the porch as we got busy and started cleaning,

The scent hit first—dust, earth, and something else. I loved the smell of sage, so I inhaled it.

We entered a mess, cobwebs draped from the ceiling like heavy curtains. Dust coated the floors and the few pieces of furniture like a thick gray sheet. Something, I didn’t want to know what, had taken up residence in the far corner of the living room.

Cyclone let out a low whistle. “Looks like you have been gone a while.”

I chuckled under my breath, tossing my backpack back out on the porch. “Yeah. We bought it right before everything happened. This was going to be our hideout. We knew we werein trouble as soon as we learned how deep in corruption the government is. I don’t want to talk about that,” I said.

“We won’t talk about it then. I need to tackle that thing in the corner.”

He peeled off his jacket,tossing it over a chair, and rolled up his sleeves. “Well, reckon we start by kicking out your... tenants.” He nodded toward the furry, beady-eyed creature blinking back at us from the corner.

We spent the next few hours deep in the trenches—sweeping, scrubbing, throwing open windows to let in the dry Arizona air. Jude scrubbed countertops while Cyclone tackled the nest in the corner, carefully coaxing the terrified critter—a desert packrat—into an old shoebox before releasing it out by the fence line.

Sweat slicked my hair to my forehead. I paused in the kitchen, bracing my palms on the counter.

“You ever think you’d end up cleaning out someone else’s abandoned dreams?” I asked, half-joking.

Cyclone, wiping grime from his arms with a rag, grinned. “Story of my life.”

We took a break on the front porch as the sun dipped low, cooling bottles of cold water from the ice chest pressing against our necks. The world felt bigger out here—wide open and strangely silent.

“So,” I said, twisting the bottle cap in my fingers. “Cyclone, huh? What’s the story?”

He leaned back against the railing, his face shadowed but relaxed. “Beau Reed, is my name,” he said first, his real name settling between them. “Cyclone was my Navy SEAL name. Special Forces picked it because...” He gave a crooked smile. “Let’s just say I had a reputation for stirring up trouble and moving fast.”

I laughed, the sound genuine and bright. It sounded strang coming from me.

“I can see that.”