Aaron’s POV
I was awake before she was.
I don’t mean the kind of awake where you toss and turn and pretend sleep might come back if you lie still long enough. I mean alert. Sitting. Listening. The kind of awake that settles into your bones when you’re somewhere that isn’t yours and someone else’s safety is involved.
Maeve’s house was quiet.
Not empty. Quiet in a lived-in way. Old wood settling. Pipes clicking once, then stopping. A clock ticking somewhere down the hall that I hadn’t noticed last night. Every sound registered, catalogued, dismissed or stored.
I stood by the front window with my mug cooling in my hand, eyes moving the way they always did. Tree line. Fence. Driveway. The stretch of land beyond it. Nothing out of place. No tracks that didn’t belong. No movement where ther
