They walked.
In opposite directions.
That was the instruction.
Simple enough to say.
Stranger in execution.
Denise moved along the eastern trail, the one that cut through the lower forest line. Familiar ground. Quiet ground. The kind of path she could have walked with her eyes closed.
Except now she was aware of something she had never been asked to notice before.
The absence.
Not of Liam’s presence.
But of immediate proximity.
The bond between them didn’t disappear.
It didn’t weaken.
But it shifted into something different—less like touch, more like awareness stretched thin across space.
Denise slowed slightly.
Then stopped.
It wasn’t discomfort.
It was observation.
She closed her eyes briefly.
And felt him.
Not beside her.
Not behind her.
But still there.
Like a sec
