Chapter 149

**Sloane**

Peace is louder than I thought it would be. It fills the house in strange ways, between the walls, under the floorboards, in the spaces where footsteps used to echo and gunfire used to hum. It’s almost disorienting. My body still expects alarms in the night or the weight of a knife at my hip, but what I get instead is laughter. Mateo’s laughter, mostly. He's been home for just a few day