Viv:
The desert morning was too still.
Sunlight crept in through the gauzy curtains of our bedroom, casting golden beams across the old hardwood floor. I’d woken next to Callie, her breathe slow and even. Knox wasn't around.
But the house wasn’t quiet.
It felt tight, coiled. Like a storm ready to break.
I threw on a hoodie and padded barefoot down the hall, expecting to find Knox maybe in the kitchen, fixing coffee the way he did most mornings—black ofcourse.
But when I stepped into the kitchen, I found him at the table instead.
Alone.
Hunched over a notebook.
His cigarette burning low in the ashtray. His gun sitting beside it.
And that look on his face—cold, focused, dangerous. That same look I’d seen before when he was ready to burn the world down.
“Morning,” I said carefully.
