Page 17

Dahlia

The quiet after the fight wasn’t peaceful. It was eerie. Heavy. Like the bookstore itself was holding its breath.

My ears were still ringing from Thea’s gunshots.

The smell of sulfur and scorched wood clung to the air, thick enough to taste.

My heart pounded like it hadn’t gotten the memo that the danger was over.

The book—the one Thea had nearly died getting—I held against my chest like a shield, fingers locked around its cracked leather spine.

Kieran sat nearby, bleeding through his shirt and trying to pretend it didn’t bother him. Thea was leaning against the bookshelf near the back, face pale, blood pooling from a wound on her forehead and one arm hanging limp. We were all wrecked. Shaken. Raw.

And then the bell over the door jingled.

I flinched so hard I nearly dropped the book.

Henry walked in, holding a paper bag and a thermos, like it was any other Sunday morning.

“What in the fresh hell did you do to my store?”

He stopped dead in the doorway. His eyes swept over the room—shelves knocked over, pages fluttering in the breeze from the broken window, soot streaks on the floor. Then they landed on me. On Thea. On Kieran.

And for the first time in forever, I saw Henry truly stunned.

“Dahlia?”

I dropped the book.

“Henry,” I breathed—and before I could stop myself, I was running to him.

He barely had time to react before I barreled into him, arms flinging around his neck, hugging him like I could anchor both of us to the ground if I just held on tight enough.

“I thought—” My voice cracked. “I thought you were gone.”

Henry let out a startled grunt, awkwardly patting my back while still holding the bag between us. “Gone? I was getting muffins, what the hell happened in here?”

“Something attacked us,” Thea called from behind a shelf, her voice rough. “Something not normal.”

Henry blinked like someone had smacked him upside the head. “Not normal? Are you—are you bleeding?”

“I’m fine,” Thea said, absolutely lying, but too stubborn to admit she was two steps from collapsing.

Henry looked to Kieran next, his expression shifting from disbelief to total suspicion. “And who are you?”

“Kieran,” he said simply, like that explained anything.

Henry stared.

“And why are you in my store, covered in blood, while my girls look like they just walked out of a horror movie?”

Kieran hesitated. “I… came out of a necklace.”

I winced. “Maybe… not the opening line we go with.”

Henry’s brow furrowed deeper than I’d ever seen it. He looked from Kieran, to me, to the utter destruction of his carefully organized store.

“I’m sorry, what now?”

I pulled back, wiping my face with the sleeve of my jacket. “It’s a really, really long story. But I swear to you, we’ll explain everything. Right now, we just—Henry, we need to sit down. Thea’s bleeding, and Kieran’s worse, and if I stand here another second, I might pass out.”

“I’m fine,” Thea muttered, though she still hadn’t moved from her spot leaning heavily on the shelf.

Henry opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “This is not how I thought my Sunday was going to go.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, reaching for Thea’s good arm to help her to a chair, “join the club.”

Kieran slumped into the seat across from us, one hand still clutching his side. I could tell by the way his jaw was set that he was trying not to show pain. Or worry. Or fear.

Henry stood there a moment longer, paper bag dangling, thermos in his other hand, staring at the chaos like it might rearrange itself if he just waited long enough.

“This,” he finally muttered, “better be one hell of a story.”

I let out a tired, shaky breath. “It is. But first… can someone get me a damn towel?”

Henry sat at the small round table near the front windows, the only part of the shop untouched by the storm that had torn through everything else.

His muffin bag sat unopened, his coffee forgotten.

The rest of us were slowly piecing ourselves back together—Thea had one of her sleeves tied off in a makeshift sling, Kieran had pressed a folded dishtowel against the gash on his side, and I was trying not to cry again.

I’d already cried once today. That felt like enough.

“So,” Henry said, after a long, stunned silence. “You want to start explaining why my floor looks like a damn werewolf convention and why you’re suddenly playing host to a man with blood on his boots and dressed like he stepped out of a gothic painting?”

Kieran, seated stiffly across from him, muttered under his breath, “Not a host. A warden, at best.”

I cleared my throat, forcing myself to focus. “Henry, I’m going to tell you the truth. Or… enough of it, for now.”

He arched one of those bushy white brows. “I’d prefer the full version. But go on.”

I glanced at Thea. She gave me a tired, silent nod. Her version of, Your mess, you explain it.

I looked back to Henry. “Do you remember the necklace you gave me for my birthday?”

He frowned. “The silver one, with the crescent moon? Found it in that old box of Jane’s stuff from the storage shed. What about it?”

“Well… turns out it was a little more than just a pretty antique.”

He stared at me. “How much more?”

“It was… cursed,” I said gently. “Not in a horror movie way. More like… magically sealed shut with a soul trapped inside, kind of cursed.”

Henry blinked slowly. “Come again?”

“The man sitting across from you,” I said, motioning to Kieran, “was trapped inside it. For a long time. The necklace opened the night you gave it to me.”

Henry let out a dry laugh—just once. Then he looked between us, realized no one else was laughing, and leaned back in his chair.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “Okay. So, the necklace had a man in it. That’s the part of the truth I’m supposed to believe?”

Thea finally spoke up. “We’re not asking you to believe everything. Just enough to not panic.”

“Too late,” Henry said, but his tone wasn’t angry—just tired. “And the thing that came after you here?”

I hesitated. “We’re still figuring that part out. But something very bad knows Kieran is free now. And it doesn’t want him to stay that way.”

“And my shop?”

“Collateral damage,” Thea said, expression dark. “It was coming after the book I found. The one Dahlia remembered seeing here.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “So this wasn’t random?”

“No,” I said quietly. “It was looking for something. Or someone.”

Kieran hadn’t said a word in minutes. He just sat there, jaw clenched, hands bloody, eyes locked on nothing in particular. There was a distance in him, a tension that hadn’t eased even now.

Henry looked between the three of us and finally let out a long, slow breath.

“Well,” he said, rubbing his face with one weathered hand. “Guess I won’t be selling any books today.”

I smiled, weak and crooked. “I’ll help you fix everything. I promise.”

“You better,” he muttered. “And you,” he pointed at Kieran. “If you’re going to keep bleeding on my hardwood floors, you’re also going to help me move these shelves when you’re healed.”

Kieran raised an eyebrow. “Understood.”

Henry stared at him for another beat, then sighed. “Alright. I’ll believe the necklace thing. But if you tell me next that you’ve got a talking rabbit at home, I’m out.”

“I don’t—” I paused. “Well… Oleander doesn’t talk. But he does glare with meaning.”

Henry waved me off. “I need coffee.”

And with that, the moment broke—just a little. Enough that I could breathe again. We weren’t okay. Not yet. But we were still standing.

And Henry, bless him, hadn’t run screaming for the hills.

That had to count for something.

“I think I should come with you, you’re going to need help.” Henry sighed, standing from his chair. “I need to try and lock the store up first.” And with that, we set to work.

The air outside was heavy, damp from the earlier rain and thick with the kind of tension that wraps around your ribs and doesn’t let go.

Thea had gone to pull her SUV around the back of the store to avoid drawing attention.

Brookside was quiet, sure—but not quiet enough that people wouldn’t notice the front window of Whitaker’s Books looked like a hurricane had passed through.

Henry stood just inside the threshold, arms crossed over his chest, watching me and Kieran with eyes that had seen more than I ever gave him credit for.

“You sure about this?” I asked him. “Coming back to the cottage with us?”

He glanced back at the wreckage of his store, lips pressed tight. “If what you said is true—and if this thing really was after that book—then I’m not staying here alone. Besides…” his eyes softened slightly as they landed on me. “I’ve got more left in me than just alphabetizing old spines.”

“You always did,” I said, voice thick with emotion.

Kieran grunted as he shifted his weight, trying to rise from the small chair he’d collapsed onto post-fight. The cut on his side had stopped bleeding, but it looked angry. I moved to help him, but Henry stepped in first.

“I’ve got him,” he said.

Kieran blinked at him in surprise. “I’m heavy.”

Henry snorted. “You’re a stick with some brooding attached. I’ll manage.”

It was strangely comforting, watching the two of them limp toward the back door together—Kieran grumbling under his breath, Henry muttering about how someone with that much attitude should weigh less.

There was something solid in it. Familiar.

Like seeing two unlikely puzzle pieces somehow click into place.

Thea opened the car door with a grim nod, eyeing Kieran’s injuries but saying nothing. She helped him into the backseat while I climbed in beside him, cradling the worn book we’d nearly died for like it was gold. I welcomed it when Kieran laid his head on my shoulder.

Henry drove in silence, Thea complaining about his ‘old man driving’. This time, the silence was thick with determination instead of dread.