HIS LAST WARNING

The storm had finally passed, but Blackwater Hall felt like it was still holding its breath. The ceilings creaked as if the house had braced itself too tightly during the night and hadn’t figured out how to relax again. Even the air seemed swollen and thick with leftover electricity from what the house had witnessed last night. 

Maybe it wasn’t the storm at all.

Maybe it was me.

I still felt Julian’s kiss hours later. Not in a romantic, fluttery way. More like an aftershock, the kind that hits in the quiet moments and makes you question your own sanity. My mind kept replaying it in sharp flashes: the heat of his mouth, the roughness of his beard, the wet weight of his rain-soaked curls hanging over his forehead. The way he’d looked at me right before it happened like he’d reached some breaking point he didn’t trust himself to cross, but did anyway.

And the worst part? I’d let him.

Even now I could still feel the apology in that kiss. The grief behind it. The loneliness. The fear. I could taste things I didn’t want to admit out loud.

I shouldn’t want it to happen again.

But I did.

The hallway stretched ahead of me, dim and quiet. My reflection ghosted across a window as I passed, pale skin, too-wide green eyes, auburn hair tangled from sleep. I looked fragile. I hated that. Fragile people snapped under pressure. I couldn’t afford to snap.

I opened my bedroom door.

A chill slid under my skin instantly the kind that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something was wrong. Not noisy-wrong. Quiet-wrong. The kind of wrong that watches you.

A folded note lay on the floor.

Not tossed.

Not dropped.

Placed.

My pulse kicked hard as I bent to pick it up. The paper was cold in my hands, as though it had been sitting there long enough to absorb the chill of the room.

I opened it.

You betrayed her memory.

I knew instantly it was Noah.

My vision blurred. For a moment I forgot how to breathe. Noah’s handwriting looked too steady for someone in mourning and even steadier for someone who had walked into my room in the middle of the night.

Into my room.

While I slept.

Alone.

The violation hit me first.

Then the fear.

Then, worst of all, the flicker of guilt: Did I betray Hanna? Had I let things blur? Had I stepped too close to the man everyone kept warning me about? I backed away from the note like it was about to explode. I wasn’t staying in that room a second longer. I left the hallway at a half-run, my heart pounding so loudly it drowned out the creaking floorboards. The library was the closest room with a door that locked, though I didn’t consciously register that until I reached it.

Julian was there.

He stood in front of one of the tall windows, sleeves rolled up as usual, the tattoos on his arms stark and dark in the morning light. He looked worn down the kind of worn that wasn’t about sleep, but about everything he carried. He turned immediately when I stepped inside.

“Ava?” His voice sharpened. “What happened?”

I held out the note.

He took it.

His whole expression changed in seconds.

Hard.

Cold.

Controlled.

“He was in your room,” Julian said quietly.

Not a question. A conclusion.

Something in me twisted. All the fear that had been clinging to my ribs moved somewhere deeper. Julian stepped toward me, too close, but I didn’t step back. He smelled like cedar and storm-salt, and something warm beneath all of it. His voice dropped to something low and dangerous.

“I won’t let him touch you.”

Maybe I should’ve been frightened by the tone. But I wasn’t. Something about the certainty in it steadied me like a hand on my spine. Before I could answer, a crash sounded upstairs:  heavy enough to shake dust from the chandelier. Julian’s head snapped upward.

“Ava, stay behind me.”

But fear did the opposite to me. It never froze me; it propelled me. Before he could stop me, I ran. By the time we reached my room, it was destroyed. The mattress was ripped open, feathers spilling everywhere. The dresser drawers hung out at crooked angles, their contents dumped across the floor. My clothes, my personal things all scattered like someone had gone through them with deliberate violence.

Julian grabbed my arm and pulled me back sharply.

“Ava, stop. Don’t go further.”

But the door swung open.

Noah stood there. His hair was damp. His skin was pale. But his eyes they were the thing that froze me. Hollow. Sunken. Lit by a grief so deep it didn’t feel human anymore.

He raised a gun.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Noah murmured. “Either of you.”

Julian shoved me behind him so fast it made my teeth click together. I felt the tension in his body tight as a drawn bowstring.

“She was my little girl,” Noah whispered, voice trembling. “And you…” He pointed the gun at me. “You were supposed to bring justice.”

My throat tightened. “Noah, I…”

“You let him get close to you,” Noah hissed. His gaze snapped to Julian. “You’re just like your brother a monster I can’t wait to see burn in hell!”

Julian flinched. Deeply. Like Noah had reached in and pressed on a bruise that still hadn’t healed.

Then Noah pointed the gun at my chest.

Time didn’t slow it just… fractured.

“NO!” Julian lunged.

The gun fired.

Pain tore through my side. Hot, sharp, tearing. I heard myself scream before I even realized I was the one screaming. My legs buckled, and the floor lurched toward me but Julian caught me, one arm around my back, the other pressing desperately against the wound.

“Ava stay awake. Look at me. Don’t you close your eyes.” 

I really tried.

But Noah lifted the gun again this time toward Julian.

“No…” My voice cracked. Something primal surged up in me, a refusal to let Julian get hurt because of me, because of Hanna, because of old ghosts neither of us had asked for. I shoved myself away from Julian and lunged at Noah. Pain shot up my side. My vision blinked in and out. The struggle was clumsy and desperate my hands slick with blood, his grip unsteady with grief.

We hit the wall.

Another shot fired.

Noah froze.

Then collapsed.

The gun clattered to the floor.

For a moment, silence hung heavy, thick enough to suffocate. Then Julian was at my side again, pulling me into his arms, his hands trembling.

“Ava Jesus.… why would you…” His voice cracked

I blinked down at Noah’s body.

Dead.

Because of me.

And then the reality: cold, legal, devastating hit me.

The scene around us was damning.

Noah dead.

Me shot.

Julian alive.

Julian with blood on his hands and a history people loved to twist. If the world saw this, they’d decide the ending before hearing the story. My fingers reached for the gun.

Julian’s hand caught my wrist immediately. “Ava no.”

“I have to,” I whispered.

“Ava, don’t please don’t…”

But I pulled away, I wiped the gun with my sleeve and placed it in Noah’s hand. Julian looked like the ground had dropped out from under him.

“Ava…”

I didn’t know what to say. I was bleeding, dazed, terrified but the instinct to protect him was stronger than all of that.

A scream cut through the hallway.

Claire.

Her footsteps thundered up the stairs.

“JULIAN?!” she shrieked. “JULIAN, WHAT WAS THAT?!”

She appeared at the top of the staircase her hair disheveled, makeup smeared, expression wild. She looked like she hadn’t just run upstairs but run through something traumatic on her way.

Then she saw the blood. Her eyes widened. Her face contorted.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. Then, louder. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

Julian recoiled like she’d slapped him.

My vision blurred. I felt myself tipping sideways, but Julian’s arms tightened around me  whispering in my ear, pleading with me to stay with him, to stay alive.

Claire screamed again.

I tried to keep my eyes open. Really, I did but the world dimmed. The hallway stretched and folded. Julian’s voice became muffled, like it was coming through water. And darkness finally pulled me under.