CHAPTER THREE

ETHAN

Forty-five minutes and countless questions later, the cops finally let us go.

Beanie was in custody, and Lena and I walked in silence toward the metro station. Most people would be rattled after almost getting mugged, but she looked as unfazed as if she'd just run errands.

I, on the other hand, was not calm. Not only had I wasted an hour answering police questions, but I’d also missed the rest of the game.

"Explain to me why every time chaos breaks out, you’re somehow in the middle of it," I said, gritting my teeth as the metro entrance came into view.

"It's not my fault you chose that street and you decided to stick around for a fun little interlude instead of minding your business," Lena shot back. "I had it under control."

I snorted, my footsteps hitting the stairs in hard, irritated beats. I could’ve taken the escalator, but I needed to burn off my frustration. Lena must’ve felt the same way because she was right there beside me, making it worse.

"'Fun little interlude'? Who even talks like that? And trust me, nothing about that was fun." I pulled out my wallet as we reached the turnstiles. "Shame the cops didn’t take you in too. You’re a danger to society."

"According to who? You?" She eyed me with barely concealed disdain.

"Yes," I said coolly. "Me, and every unfortunate soul who's ever crossed paths with you."

It was a low blow, but between the letters, an exhausting hospital shift, and my general existential crisis, I wasn’t in a generous mood.

"God, you are insufferable," Lena snapped, slamming her metro card against the reader. "The. Absolute. Worst."

I passed through the turnstile behind her. "No, the worst would be your complete lack of self-preservation.

Basic common sense says you give the mugger what they want." The more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. "What if you couldn’t disarm him? What if he had a second weapon you didn’t see? You could have died!"

Lena’s face flushed. "Stop yelling at me. You’re not my father."

"I'm not yelling!"

We came to a halt beneath the schedule board, which announced the next train’s arrival in eight minutes. The station was nearly deserted—just a couple tangled in a heated makeout session on a bench and a businessman in a crisp suit standing at the far end of the platform. It was so quiet I could hear the pounding rush of blood in my ears.

We stood there, locked in a silent standoff, our breathing heavy with frustration. I wanted to shake her for being reckless enough to risk her life over a damn phone and wallet.

Just because I couldn’t stand her didn’t mean I wanted her dead.

Not all the time, anyway.

I braced myself for another sharp remark, but instead of firing back, Lena turned away, slipping into an uncharacteristic silence.

It unsettled me more than anything she could have said. I couldn’t remember the last time she let me have the final word.

I exhaled sharply through my nose, forcing myself to rein in my temper and think rationally.

Like it or not, Lena was Ava’s best friend. And regardless of how unaffected she seemed, she’d just had a gun pointed at her. Unless she was a machine, she had to be feeling something.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, studying the rigid set of her shoulders, the way her jaw clenched a fraction too tight. Her face was neutral—too much so.

My anger began to ebb, replaced by something far more complicated. I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, debating.

Lena and I weren’t the kind of people who comforted each other. We barely acknowledged each other’s existence unless we had to. Hell, we didn’t even say bless you when the other sneezed.

But…

Dammit.

"You okay?" I asked, my voice rough.

I might not have liked her, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d almost died. It went against everything I stood for—as a doctor and as a decent human being.

"I'm fine." Lena tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her voice even, but I didn’t miss the faint tremor in her hand.

Adrenaline was a wild thing. It made you sharper, faster, invincible—until it wore off. Then came the crash. The trembling hands, the sudden weakness in your legs, the flood of thoughts you’d managed to suppress surging back all at once.

I’d bet every dollar to my name that Lena was smack in the middle of that crash.

"Are you hurt?"

"No. I got the gun away from him before he had the chance to do anything." She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, her stare so unwavering I half-expected her to burn a hole through the station wall.

"Didn’t realize you had secret super-soldier training." I tried to inject a little levity into the conversation, though, truthfully, I was curious. The cops had questioned us separately, so I hadn’t heard her version of how she managed to disarm Beanie.

"You don’t need to be a super soldier to take down a mugger." Her nose scrunched slightly. Finally. A flicker of normalcy. "I took self-defense classes when I was younger. They covered disarming an attacker."

Huh. That wasn’t something I would’ve guessed about her.

Before I could reply, the train rumbled into the station.

There weren’t any open seats—no surprise, since the last stop was a major hub—so we stood pressed side by side near the doors, the space between us taut with unspoken tension.

The ride to Hazelburg, the quiet Maryland suburb that housed Thayer’s campus, was quick.

Lena and I used to be next-door neighbors back when she and Ava lived together during their senior year, but a lot had changed since then. Ava had moved to the city, and I’d found a new place of my own.

Too many ghosts lingered in my old house. Too many memories I had no desire to relive.

Hazelburg wasn’t a big town, and Lena’s house was only about a twenty-minute walk from mine. Without thinking, we naturally fell into step as we exited the station, the quiet night stretching between us.

When we reached the corner where our paths diverged—her to the left, me to the right—Lena finally spoke.

"Don't tell Ava or anyone else about what happened," she said. "I don’t want them worrying over nothing."

"I won’t." She had a point. Ava would stress herself out, and there was no sense in stirring up concern over something that was already over. I hesitated for half a second before adding, "You sure you're okay?"

For a split second, I considered offering to walk her home, but that would’ve been pushing it. Lena and I had reached our quota for civility tonight. Case in point:

"Yes." She absently rubbed her fingers over the sleeve of her coat, her gaze distant. Then, as if the moment of vulnerability never existed, she snapped, "Don't be late to Ava's party on Saturday. I know punctuality isn't one of your few virtues, but try to make an effort."

Just like that, whatever shred of concern I had evaporated into thin air.

"I won’t be late," I bit out. "Don't worry about me."

I turned on my heel before she could fire back, not bothering with a goodbye. Lena had an uncanny talent for ruining every. Single. Fucking. Interaction.

Maybe her prickly attitude was some kind of defense mechanism, but that was not my problem. I wasn’t about to dig beneath the surface like we were characters in one of those ridiculous romance novels Ava obsessed over.

If Lena wanted to be insufferable, I had every right to avoid the suffering by removing myself from her presence.

The wind howled through the trees, biting at my face as I walked. Hazelburg was one of the safest towns in the country, but…

I thought about the tremor in Lena’s hand at the station. The stiff set of her shoulders. The paleness of her skin.

My brisk pace slowed.

You're overthinking this. Just go home.

So what if it was dark and she was alone? The odds of something happening to her were next to none, even if she had a way of attracting chaos like a goddamn magnet.

I shut my eyes, exhaling sharply. I couldn’t believe I was even debating this.

"God motherfucking dammit." The curse slipped out through clenched teeth.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I spun around and retraced my steps in the direction Lena had gone, jaw set tighter with every step.

I was pissed—at my conscience for choosing the worst possible moments to make an appearance, at Lena for simply existing, at Ava for being friends with her, and at Thayer’s housing coordinator for ever placing them in the same dorm room, cementing their friendship years ago.

Fate had always had it out for me, but nothing compared to the colossal joke it played when it decided to drop a certain redhead into my life.

It didn’t take long to catch up with her. I kept my distance—far enough that she wouldn’t notice me but close enough that I could still see her.

The fiery red of her hair and the deep purple of her coat made her an easy target to track, even in the dimly lit streets.

I felt like a goddamn stalker. But if she saw me, it would spark yet another argument, and I was too fucking exhausted for that.

Thankfully, her house wasn’t far, and in less than ten minutes, we reached it.

A soft glow peeked from behind the curtains, and my muscles finally unclenched. Stella—Ava and Lena’s old college friend and Lena’s current roommate—must already be home.

Lena stepped onto the porch, reached into her bag… and stopped.

Every ounce of tension I’d just let go came rushing back. I edged behind a tree on the opposite sidewalk, bracing myself for her to turn around. But she didn’t. She just stood there. Completely still. For an entire minute.

What the hell was she doing?

A strange unease curled in my stomach. Was she in shock? Processing everything that had happened?

I was on the verge of crossing the street when she finally moved. She pulled her keys out, unlocked the door, and disappeared inside without a backward glance.

A slow, deep breath left my lungs, forming a thin puff of white in the cold night air. I waited another beat, eyes lingering on the porch where she had stood frozen moments ago.

Then, finally, I turned and walked home.