A groan tore from my throat, a ragged sound swallowed by the cheap motel pillow. My head was a hornet’s nest of regret, each throb a fresh sting of last night’s whiskey and fury.
Sunlight, sharp and accusatory, sliced through a gap in the blackout curtains, pinning me to the mattress.
But it wasn’t the hangover that held me captive. It was the memory, a phantom sensation that ghosted over my skin.
The rough, splintery wood of the bar digging into my back. The solid, unyielding wall of Nash’s body pressing into mine.
His scent—stale bourbon, river mud, and something else, something uniquely him, wild and untamed—filled my senses even now.
My lips still felt bruised, swollen from the brutal force of his kiss. It hadn’t been a kiss of seduction.
It had been a collision, a desperate, angry purge of secrets and sorrow that had lit a fire in the pit of my stomach I didn’t know how to extinguish. He’d slammed his truth into me—he was with her that night—and then sealed it with a kiss that tasted of guilt and grief.
I finally forced my eyes open, peeling my cheek from the starchy pillowcase.
The room swam into a blurry focus, and I pushed myself up, my muscles screaming in protest. A wave of nausea rolled over me.
I needed water. Coffee. A goddamn time machine.
My bare feet hit the cool linoleum, and I shuffled toward the small kitchenette, my gaze sweeping the room.
Something was wrong. It wasn’t an overt, obvious wrongness.
It was a subtle disturbance, a quiet hum of violation that set the fine hairs on my arms on end.
My suitcase, which I’d left half-unpacked on the luggage rack, was closed. The t-shirts I’d tossed on the chair were folded. Not neatly, but folded nonetheless.
The few toiletries I’d left scattered on the bathroom counter were now arranged in a tight, almost military line.
My laptop bag sat by the door, its main zipper pulled halfway, as if someone had taken a quick peek inside and closed it with casual disinterest.
This wasn’t a robbery. This was a search. A professional, methodical search.
My stomach, already churning with cheap whiskey, clenched into a tight, icy knot.
Someone had been in here. While I was passed out, dreaming of angry kisses and ghosts.
My breath hitched. My eyes darted around the small, sterile space, cataloging every detail, every shift in the atmosphere.
They landed on the bed. My bed.
On the pillow next to the one I’d slept on, nestled in the slight indentation where a head might have rested, was a flower.
It was a single blossom, no bigger than my thumb, a splash of impossible darkness against the stark white cotton.
Its five petals were a deep, velvety purple, so dark they were almost black, with a tiny, star-like burst of yellow at their center.
Poisonous beauty.
I knew this flower. I had stared at its likeness for hours in grainy crime scene photos.
A swamp-grown nightshade. The same kind the coroner had found tangled in Hannah’s hair.
The air rushed from my lungs in a silent scream.
The hangover, the nausea, the lingering heat from Nash’s kiss—it all evaporated, replaced by a dread so cold and absolute it felt like death itself had laid a hand on my shoulder.
This was a message.
We were here. We can get to you anytime. We were in your bed while you slept, and we could have done anything we wanted.
My hand, shaking uncontrollably, fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. My fingers felt like clumsy sausages as I stabbed at the screen, my vision tunneling until all I could see was Ben’s name.
It rang once. Twice.
“Callie?” His voice was groggy, thick with sleep.
“Ben,” I breathed, the word a ragged puff of air. “Someone was in my room.”
The sleepiness vanished from his voice, replaced by the sharp, authoritative crackle of a lawman. “What? Are you okay? Are they still there?”
“No. I—I don’t think so. But my room… it’s been searched. Ben, they left something.” I couldn’t bring myself to say what. The word felt like a curse.
“Don’t touch anything. Lock the deadbolt and the chain. I’m on my way. Five minutes.”
The line went dead. I did as he said, my back pressed against the door as I slid the chain into its slot, the metallic click doing nothing to soothe the frantic drumming of my heart.
I stood there, wrapped in nothing but a thin t-shirt and a thick blanket of terror, my eyes fixed on the obscene purple flower lying in state on my pillow.
True to his word, Ben was there in under five. I heard his tires crunch on the gravel outside before a sharp, heavy knock rattled the door.“Callie, it’s me.”
I fumbled with the chain and yanked the door open. He stood there, already in his uniform, his face a grim mask of concern.
His eyes swept over me, checking for injury, before moving past me to scan the room. He stepped inside, his presence instantly filling the small space, a bulwark of solid, reassuring strength.
And then he saw it.
His body went rigid.
The concern on his face hardened into a cold, dangerous fury I had never seen before. He moved toward the bed slowly, as if approaching a coiled snake.
“Don’t touch it,” I whispered.
“I wasn’t going to,” he bit out, his jaw tight. He pulled out his phone, his movements precise and economical, and snapped several photos of the blossom from different angles.
Then he turned to me, and the full force of his protective anger washed over me.
“Pack your things,” he said, his voice low and guttural. “Pack everything. You’re not staying here another second.”
“Ben, what—”
“They were in your room, Callie,” he cut me off, his voice rising with a controlled tremor.
“They were in here while you slept. This…” He gestured at the flower with a flick of his chin, his disgust palpable.
“This isn’t just a threat. This is an announcement. They’re telling you they can get to you. They’re telling you to stop.”
The fear was still there, a cold snake coiling in my gut, but something else was rising to meet it: a stubborn, white-hot spike of defiance.
They wanted me to run? Fine.
It meant I was doing something right. It meant I was getting close.
“I’m not stopping,” I said, my voice steadier than I expected. “Ben, this proves it. This proves I’m on the right track. Someone is terrified of what I might find.”
He took a step closer, his eyes pleading.
“And what happens when you find it? What do you think they’ll do then? Leave you another flower? Callie, this is my fault. I should have never let you stay here. I should have put you on the first bus out of this godforsaken town the day you arrived.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, shaking my head. The memory of Nash’s anger, his raw admission, flashed in my mind.
He’d tried to warn me away, too. Everyone wanted me gone. Everyone but me.
“And you couldn’t have stopped me.”
“Then let me protect you,” he insisted, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Go. Please. Go back home. Let me handle this.”
And there it was. For the first time, Ben’s protective instinct didn’t feel like a warm blanket. It felt like a cage.
He wasn’t just trying to keep me safe; he was trying to sideline me, to take this away from me.
This was my fight. My sister. My truth to uncover.
His broad shoulders, which had always seemed like a shield, now felt like a wall blocking my path.
“Handle it how, Ben?” I challenged, crossing my arms over my chest
“By filing another report that goes nowhere? By ‘looking into it’ while the whole town closes ranks? I’ve seen how that works. No. I’m staying.”
A war played out on his face—frustration, fear, and a deep-seated helplessness. He scrubbed a hand over his face, a sigh of pure exasperation escaping him.
“Fine. You won’t leave town. But you’re not staying here. It’s not safe. Nothing in this town is safe for you right now.”
He was already moving, his mind made up.
“I have a place. It’s a cabin on my family’s property, miles from anything. It’s solid, secure. No one knows about it except my parents. You’ll stay there.”
It wasn’t a request. It was an order.
I bristled, but the logical part of my brain knew he was right. Staying here was an invitation for them to escalate.
The drive was silent and tense. Ben gripped the steering wheel of his truck so tightly his knuckles were white.
We left the town behind, turning onto a series of winding dirt roads that plunged deep into the cypress swamp. The air grew thick and heavy, dripping with humidity and the smell of wet earth.
Finally, he pulled up to a small, sturdy-looking cabin made of dark, weathered wood. It was nestled in a clearing, surrounded by a dense wall of trees and hanging moss, utterly isolated.
A beautiful prison.
He unlocked the heavy oak door and pushed it open, ushering me inside. It was one large room, dominated by a stone fireplace.
A small kitchen was tucked into one corner, a comfortable-looking bed in another. It was clean, spartan, and felt as secure as a bank vault.
He set my bag down on the floor. “The cell service is spotty, but the landline works,” he said, pointing to an old rotary phone on a side table.
“I’ll bring you groceries. Don’t leave the cabin. Don’t talk to anyone. Just… stay put. Stay safe.”
He turned to leave, but I stepped in front of him. “Ben. Look at me.”
He met my gaze, his own eyes full of a pain that mirrored my own.
“Are you trying to protect me,” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, “or are you trying to stop me?”
He flinched as if I’d struck him. “Don’t ask me that, Callie. Please.”
“I have to,” I insisted.
“Because I’m not running. Not from this. That flower… it was a threat, but it was also a confirmation. Hannah was onto something big, and now they think I am, too. And I won’t stop until I know what it is.”
He stared at me for a long moment, the silence stretching between us, thick with unspoken fears. Finally, he just shook his head, a look of profound defeat settling over him.
“Be careful,” he murmured, his voice rough with emotion. He brushed past me and was gone, the solid thud of the oak door sealing me inside.
I walked to the window and watched his truck disappear down the dirt track, leaving behind a cloud of dust that slowly settled back into the suffocating stillness of the swamp.
I was alone. Safe, for the moment. But I was also trapped.
Ben, with his desperate need to protect me, was now as much of an obstacle as the faceless people who left flowers on my pillow.
My hand went to my pocket, my fingers closing around the crumpled napkin from The Swamp Devil.
On it, Nash had scrawled a few cryptic words during our argument, something about Hannah and a place she called ‘the hollow oak.’ It was the only lead I had that didn’t come from a police file.
They had drawn a line in the sand with that flower. And I was about to step right over it.