The air in Millhaven was thick with the smell of blood.
Not literally—the street still smelled like wet asphalt and the cheap pine cleaner the school used—but the social kind. The kind that happens when a predator who has ruled the territory for decades is suddenly, clinically, and very publicly gutted in the middle of the lobby.
I leaned against my truck, watching the students file into the gym. The chatter wasn't about the makeup game or the upcoming winter dance. It was about Mr. Sterling. It was about the 'federal audit.' It was about the way the Mayor's secretary had been seen personally removing the red tape from the Ledger building at six in the morning, looking like she'd seen a ghost.
"Crazy, right?" my teammate, Miller, said as he passed me. "I mean, everyone knew Sterling was a prick, but a federal audit? Overnight? That's some John Wick level shit."
"Yeah," I said, my voice flat. "Insane."
My mind was racing. My father had spent eighteen years training me to read the subtext of power. I knew how long it took for the government to move. I knew how long it took for a Mayor to admit a 'clerical error.'
It didn't happen in four hours. Not without someone holding a gun to the city's head.
And then I saw Wren.
She was standing by the entrance, Ezra hovering near her with his camera bag. She looked like she was trying to blend into the brickwork, but every few seconds, her gaze would flick to the parking lot entrance, her shoulders rigid, her hands buried deep in the pockets of her oversized coat.
She wasn't celebrating. She was waiting for the second shoe to drop.
I didn't talk to her. I didn't even look at her for more than a second. We had a performance to maintain, after all. But the knot in my stomach was tightening with every breath I took.
I waited until the afternoon sun began to bleed into the horizon before I headed to the mill.
The rain had stopped, leaving the woods damp and smelling of rot and cold earth. I pulled onto the loading dock, the engine clicking as it died.
Wren was already there. She was standing by the edge of the creek, staring at the water. She'd tried to wash the paint from her hands, but there were still faint, ghostly stains of Prussian Blue under her fingernails.
"We won," I said, stepping out of the truck.
I wanted to sound happy. I wanted to sound like the boy who had promised to set the town on fire for her. But the words felt hollow, like a script I hadn't bothered to memorize.
Wren turned to me, and for a second, she tried. She gave me a small, trembling smile. "We did. The Mayor apologized. I can finish the mural. Ezra says we can have it done by Sunday."
"Wren." I walked toward her, stopping just outside her personal space. The air between us was electric, but it wasn't the good kind. It wasn't the kind that ended with me over the center console of my truck. "How did it happen?"
Her smile faltered, then vanished. She looked back at the water. "I told you. The Mayor realized he'd overstepped. Chloe's father must have had some skeletons in his closet that someone finally decided to report."
"Someone finally decided to report them at midnight on a Tuesday? Within hours of him shutting you down?" I took a step closer, my voice dropping. "Millhaven doesn't work that way, Wren. The world doesn't work that way."
"Maybe we just got lucky, Hayes."
"Luck is a coin flip," I snapped, the frustration finally boiling over. "This was a tactical strike. This was a professional hit on a man's entire life. Who did it? Who did you call?"
Wren's jaw tightened. "I didn't call anyone."
"Don't lie to me." It hurt. It felt like a physical blow to the chest, sharper than the rotator cuff sprain that was currently pulsing with heat. "I saw you on the loading dock last night. I saw the way you stiffened when that phone buzzed. I saw the fear in your eyes—and it wasn't fear of Chloe. It was the fear of a debt you were about to sign."
"You don't know what you're talking about," she whispered, her hands clenching into fists.
"I know that I broke my body for you!" I shouted, the volume of my voice echoing off the stone walls of the mill. "I know that I dumped the girl who was my ticket out of this town so I could keep people from looking at you! I've given you everything I have, Wren. I've lived in the shadows. I've played the stranger. And you still don't trust me enough to tell me who is pulling the strings in your life."
"I'm trying to protect you!" Wren screamed back, turning to face me. Her eyes were bright with tears, her face flushed with a desperate, frantic anger. "If you knew, if you were involved—"
"I am involved! I'm the one holding you while you shake! I'm the one who is supposed to be your partner!" I stepped into her space, my shadow falling over her. "But You're treating me like I'm some fragile porcelain doll that can't handle the reality of who you are. You'd rather take help from a ghost on a burner phone than let me carry the weight with you."
"Because you can't carry this, Hayes!" She pushed my chest, her hands trembling. "You think you're so tough because you can take a hit on a football field? You have no idea what these people are capable of! You have no idea what it's like to be owned!"
"Then let me be owned with you!" I grabbed her wrists, not hard, but enough to make her look at me. "Stop shutting me out. Stop making me a spectator in my own life. If you can't trust me with the truth, then what the hell are we even doing here?"
I let go of her wrists and stepped back, the silence of the woods suddenly deafening. My chest was heaving, my heart doing a jagged, broken rhythm.
"If this is how it's going to be," I said, my voice barely a whisper, "if I'm always going to be the guy you hide things from to 'protect' me... then I can't do this. I can't love a ghost, Wren."
I turned and walked toward the truck. Every step felt like I was walking through wet concrete. I wanted her to stop me. I wanted her to scream at me. I wanted her to tell me I was wrong.
I reached the door and pulled it open.
"Hayes."
Her voice was small. Broken. It was the sound of a wall finally, irrevocably crumbling.
I stopped, my hand gripping the handle of the door. I didn't turn around.
"You want to know who killed the dragon?" she asked. I could hear the tears in her voice now, thick and suffocating. "You want to know why the Mayor is terrified and why the Sterlings are gone?"
I stayed silent, my breath hitching in my throat.
"Then sit down," she whispered. "Let's talk about Julian Vance."