The headlights cut across the living room wall, sweeping over the half-open box on the coffee table, and then just as quickly they were gone. The hum of the engine faded into the night until it was only silence again but it wasn’t the silence of safety. It was the silence of a threat that hadn’t shown its face yet.
I couldn’t breathe until I heard the night settle back down, the crickets, the faint hum of power lines, the tick of the kitchen clock. My hands were still pressed flat to the box, fingers gripping the worn cardboard like it could anchor me to the ground.
“They know,” I whispered.
Noah didn’t answer right away. He’d crossed to the window, his shadow tall against the thin curtains, watching the stretch of street outside. His jaw was tight, his shoulders wound so tight it looke
