Chapter 54 Scared

***Gideon***

We don’t speak on the drive back.

Not because there’s nothing to say—but because there’s too much, and none of it belongs in a car where she’s already holding herself together by force alone.

Hazel sits in the passenger seat, spine straight, hands folded in her lap like she’s bracing for impact. Her face is dry now. Too dry. The kind of calm that comes after something breaks so deeply