Chapter 11: Hollow Roads

Rain ticked softly against the windows of her flat.

Midnight had come and gone. The forest behind her was quiet, like it was listening.

Lena sat on the edge of her bed, fingers pressed to her thigh, trying to ground herself in the feel of cotton and bone. But the stillness wasn't enough tonight. The air inside her skin felt too tight. She couldn't breathe it out.

Eliot hadn't messaged.

Not that he owed her that. They didn't have rules. No patterns yet. Nothing to demand or expect.

But it had been a bad day.

And bad days left echoes—clinging to skin like static, hiding in the folds of breath, curling in the spaces between someone's words. She could still see how he'd looked that morning when he walked into the office: tight around the mouth, moving like he didn't trust himself not to shatter if someone asked him the wrong question.

He'd been burning.

Contained, but barely.

And she'd watched. Quietly. Helplessly.

That wasn't like her.

She stood without thinking. Moved to the window and stared out at the dark edge of the forest. Trees black as ink. Wind slipping through branches in low whispers.

It would've been easier to let it go. Let the day end and the silence settle and the questions unravel on their own.

But Eliot Chase wasn't an abstraction anymore.

He was under her skin.

She moved across the room in silence, pulse steady, breath slow.

No boots. No coat. Just a black hoodie, jeans, hair yanked into a knot at the base of her neck. No jewelry. Nothing that could flash.

She opened the drawer she never touched.

Inside: a keyring. Small. Familiar.

The car was old, tucked in a garage three blocks from her flat. A leftover gift from an uncle who didn't ask questions. She hadn't used it in months. She didn't need to. But tonight wasn't about errands or escape.

Tonight was about him.

She drove with her lights low.

Rain softened to mist as she turned off the main road, the city stretching thin and quiet in the mirror behind her. Buildings blurred by fog. Streetlights blurred by memory.

She knew exactly where he lived.

Unit 4B, Cedar Hollow. Second floor, back-facing.

She'd memorized it weeks ago, tucked away from the employee contact forms. Not because she needed it.

Because she wanted it.

The building sat hunched at the end of a quiet street, half-draped in ivy and peeling paint. Dimly lit. No doorman. No cameras.

Good.

She didn't park close. Three buildings down, engine humming low. She sat behind the wheel a moment longer than necessary, fingers loose on the leather, jaw tight.

Then she stepped out.

No sound. Just the brush of her soles on wet pavement. Hood up. Rain kissing her cheeks.

She didn't go to the front.

Didn't need to.

The back hedge ran flush with the lower walk, rising just enough to give her cover. She slipped behind it, crouching low. Brambles brushed her knees. She didn't flinch.

Fourth from the end. Second floor.

His window was lit.

Curtains half-drawn. Open just a crack.

And inside—movement.

She watched.

Still. Patient. Barely breathing.

A voice—low, strained.

Eliot.

"—don't talk to me like I don't remember."

She shifted slightly, just enough to catch the angle of the room. He was by the kitchenette, standing rigid.

Another voice answered—harsher. Male. Familiar, but only just.

"You don't get to rewrite it, El."

Lena's body stilled.

The wolf inside her went silent, ears tipped forward.

The second man moved across the frame. Wiry. A little older than Eliot. Clothes wrinkled. A storm in his posture.

"You always do this," the man said. "Pretend it didn't happen, or that it didn't matter. But you don't get to bury me just because you're tired of dragging it around."

Eliot's hands were clenched at his sides.

"I'm not pretending," he said, low. "I just want it to stop."

"To stop?" The man laughed. Bitter, sharp. "There is no stop, Eliot. There's only you running. Like always."

A beat.

Then—movement.

Fast.

A blur.

The man stepped forward, into Eliot's space—and hit him.

A fist. Not open-handed. Not a push.

Lena felt the snap of it like it had landed across her own skin.

Eliot staggered, shoulder striking the wall. A lamp toppled with a dull thud. His cheek snapped sideways. But he didn't fall.

Didn't raise a hand in return.

He just stood there, face turned away, chest moving in sharp, shallow breaths.

The other man's shoulders heaved.

He didn't say anything else.

Just turned. Moved out of frame.

Then the door—slam.

Gone.

Eliot stayed standing.

A long moment passed.

Lena crouched lower, rain soaking into the knees of her jeans.

And the wolf inside her—seethed.

It wasn't anger. Not exactly. Not yet.

It was restraint.

Something old and sharp pacing beneath her skin. Teeth on edge. Claws curled tight.

She had seen Eliot quiet before. Seen him careful. But never like this.

Never that still.

He touched his cheek. Gingerly. Winced. Breathed out through his nose.

Then, finally, he moved.

Not far. Just sat on the edge of the couch. Elbows to knees. Head bowed. Like he was afraid if he let go of himself, even slightly, something inside him would snap.

Lena didn't blink.

Didn't look away.

She watched the way his fingers gripped, released, gripped again.

The way his jaw worked, like he was biting down on every word he wanted to scream.

He didn't cry.

He didn't rage.

He just sat there.

And she understood more about him in that moment than she had in all the words they'd traded.

Eliot Chase had been broken a long time ago.

And now he was just trying to hold the pieces where no one could see them shift.

Lena didn't move.

Didn't leave.

She stayed there, in the dark, hidden in the hedge behind his building, as the storm passed and the sky began to bleed toward gray.

And she knew, with the quiet certainty of instinct:

This wasn't curiosity anymore.

This was hers now.

Whatever haunted him, whatever hurt he carried—

She would learn it.

And if it came back?

She'd tear it apart.