(Hailey Miller's POV)
Dawn sifted through the warehouse’s filthy pane, throwing thin ribs of gold across cracked cement. The first night was behind us. We had survived — not an assault from outside, but the small, relentless demons Liam and I carried inside our chests.
I woke with the weight of his arm around my waist, my back pressed to the broad, steady warmth of his chest. We had slept like that—wrapped in blankets on the cold floor, Caleb and Isabella curled beside us in their makeshift crib. It hadn’t been an act of want so much as of necessity: two bodies finding heat and anchor in the same storm.
His breathing lay like a slow tide at the base of my skull. For a breath or two, sleep scrubbed clean the memory of where we were and why. I simply felt him—solid, a wall of muscle and s
