Page 20 of The Mountain Man's Curvy Trick-or-Treat

“I won’t let them hurt her,” I promise the silence.

Somewhere above the valley, the reprogrammed constructs stir—their new directives humming in time with the woman’s heartbeat miles away.

Then I vanish into the shadows of the mountain, every pulse of my body syncing to a single purpose—to protect her.

But I can’t go to her. Not yet.

The regulator once defined me—machine wrapped in flesh. Now I’m something uncalibrated. Maybe that’s what being alive means.

Every beat of my heart feels foreign, wild and unsupervised, but it still finds her frequency. That’s enough to keep me moving.

Chapter

Eight

EDEN

For a long time, I just stare at the plate.

It shouldn’t be glowing. It shouldn’t even be here.

Every other detail grounds me. Just a quiet small-town apartment, vanilla lingering from Halloween cookies, not proof that dreams can follow you home.

I blink hard, shake my head, and push the revelation aside. “Too much caffeine,” I mutter, though I haven’t finished my first cup.

Morning light filters through the curtains, painting gold across the kitchen tile. Everything should feel normal—quiet Sunday, no customers, no alarms—but beneath the silence runs a low vibration, faint as a radio left on in another room.

When I step onto the balcony with my coffee, the world smells like wet pine and sugar. The street below is still. The world feels paused—no wind, no engines, only the tick of cooling metal somewhere far below. Then, a shimmer catches the corner of my eye.

A dragonfly hovers near the railing—large, iridescent, its body a mosaic of turquoise and bronze. Its wings move too slowly to fly, yet somehow stay aloft, the air around themrippling with each beat—too mechanical to belong in nature, too unthinkable to be anything else.

“Hey there, gorgeous,” I whisper, leaning closer.

It doesn’t flinch. It just watches me. Its faceted eyes glow faintly, reflecting back my own outline. Then, a soft metallicclickbreaks the stillness.

I freeze. The sound isn’t right. Too precise, too deliberate.

The dragonfly darts forward, the downdraft stirring my hair, and lands on the railing inches from my hand. Heat pulses from it—barely there but unmistakable.

My breath catches. “You’re … warm?” My thoughts flicker back to Everett.

Another click, and it lifts away, gliding toward the sunlight until it vanishes in a quick flash of iridescence.

I exhale slowly, pressing a hand to my chest. My laugh sounds too thin, like it doesn’t belong to me. “Okay, Eden. New rule. No more glowing honey before bed.”

Down on the street, a dog barks once and refuses to cross the intersection. Birds wheel overhead, circling the same patch of sky as if caught in invisible currents.

Inside, my phone buzzes, Mallory Denver, a reporter from theStarborn Range Chronicle.She’s been coordinating with me about a feature on the bakery. I sit back down in front of the plate I’m trying to ignore.

MALLORY

Morning, Eden. Random question. Any trouble with your lights or ovens?

I glance toward the kitchen. The fluorescent bulb hums louder than usual.

ME

Bakery closed today. Define weird?