POV: Stella The mountains stood white and silent behind the compound, the sky above them the flat gray of a day that hadn’t decided whether to snow again.
Around me, people moved with the particular urgency of a place breaking itself down — crates lashed to truck beds, vehicle treads checked twice, doors bolted that had stood open all week.
I pulled my coat tighter and looked back at the barracks one last time — the same low, sturdy rows of buildings that had felt like a cage on day one and now, absurdly, felt like something I was about to lose.
It was strange that I didn’t feel relieved to be leaving.
Instead, I was reluctant.
I had spent only seven days here.
Yet the outpost had become familiar.
I’d miss the mornings — someone always shouting across the yard about missing gear before the sun had fully cleared the ridge.
The thud of boots on the floorboards.
The arguments over whose turn it was to heat the water, and the stupid, easy banter over powdered eggs that no one bothered to dress up for my benefit.
The woodsmoke drifting off the mess hall.
The particular, total quiet that settled after lights-out, when even the wind seemed to know better than to bother anyone.
No one had pretended to like me nor had pretended to hate me either.
If someone was annoyed, they scowled.
If someone wanted help, they asked.
There were no fake smiles or backhanded compliments or carefully chosen words designed to hurt without leaving evidence.
Just life.
Unfiltered and direct.
A sudden, horrifying thought hit me: I had felt safer and more comfortable in a mountain outpost surrounded by lethal Hunters than I ever had in my family’s house.
I shuddered, rubbing my arms to push the thought away.
“Don’t break anything else while you’re gone,” a voice called out.
I turned.
Casse, one of the logistics officers whose ledgers I’d spent an entire afternoon fixing, was hauling a crate toward the truck bed, not even looking at me.
I crossed my arms, trying to look offended.
“I don’t break things.” Casse stopped, giving me a flat, dry look.
I let out a breath and sighed.
“Fine.
I break things occasionally.” He chuckled, tossing the crate onto the truck bed.
“Safe travels, Madam.” ”Thanks,” I said softly.
I climbed into the back of the armored transport.
As the heavy door shut, sealing out the freezing wind, I looked out the narrow window at the clearing.
I didn’t expect to miss this place.
The convoy lurched forward, descending the winding mountain pass.
Inside, the transport smelled like cold metal and gun oil, the reinforced walls swallowing sound the way West Ridge’s open air never had.
Dylan sat across from me, unreadable as always.
Collins sat beside him, scrolling through a tablet with the particular stillness of a man who’d rather be anywhere else.
I watched Dylan out of the corner of my eye.
“Do you ever relax?” I asked, breaking the silence.
Dylan didn’t look up from his papers.
“Yes.” ”When?” ”I’m not sure.” I stared at him.
“That’s depressing.” ”You asked.” I leaned back against the leather seat, turning my gaze back to the window.
The silence returned, but it wasn’t heavy or terrifying like it used to be.
It was just quiet.
Outside, the snow thinned by degrees until it vanished altogether, the dirt roads smoothing into pavement, the pines giving way to billboards and streetlights.
Somewhere in that transition, the mountain air I hadn’t realized I’d gotten used to was replaced by something drier, more artificial — city air, filtered through glass and steel.
Then the skyline itself rose on the horizon, and my chest tightened with it, one building at a time.
I’d left this city as Stella Knox, the disaster daughter nobody wanted at the table.
I was coming back as something the tabloids hadn’t found a category for yet.
♡´･ᴗ･`♡ Two hours later, the convoy pulled up to the iron gates of Blackwood House.
The gates swung open onto a driveway long enough to have its own weather — the air noticeably stiller here, hedges cut into shapes too precise to be accidental, the house itself rising pale and unlit at the end of it like something built to be looked at rather than lived in.
When the truck stopped at the base of the steps, the driver opened my door, and I sat there a second longer than I needed to, trying to decide if a house could really be a home just because someone handed you a key to it.
Head Butler Bowman stood at the bottom of the stairs, perfectly composed in his crisp uniform, his hands folded behind his back.
”Welcome home, sir,” Bowman said, bowing slightly to Dylan.
Then he turned to me, pausing for a fraction of a second.
“Madam.” I instinctively looked behind myself before catching my own mistake.
I still wasn’t used to the title.
”You’re talking to me?” I asked.
Bowman’s mouth twitched with the faintest hint of dry amusement.
“There is no one else here, Madam.” I smiled weakly.
Dylan brushed past us without a word, heading straight inside.
I hurried up the steps to follow him.
Before I reached the double doors, a wave of noise hit me from the far end of the estate perimeter.
Shouting.
Horns.
The rapid, mechanical clicking of camera shutters.
“STELLA!” “IS IT TRUE YOU WERE ABANDONED?” “DID DYLAN BURKE TRY TO KILL YOU?” “ARE YOU STILL MARRIED?” “DID THE APEX HUNTER EXECUTE THE WITNESSES?” I froze on the top step.
Beyond the gates, a wall of vans and cameras stretched down the road, paparazzi pressed against the bars hard enough to rattle them, held back only by a line of armed guards who looked completely unbothered by the noise.
Flash after flash strobed white against the sunny afternoon.
Apparently the entire city had spent the last week convinced I was dead.
Judging by the tone of the shouting, more than a few of them were disappointed to be wrong.
I looked at Dylan, who had stopped in the foyer.
“Do they always do this?” ”Yes but it’s gotten more exciting since you came around,” Dylan said, his voice flat.
”That’s horrible.” ”You’ll get used to it.” I looked back at the chaotic crowd.
“I don’t think I want to.” ”It’s not like you have a choice.” He turned and walked deeper into the house.
Once upstairs, I escaped to my bedroom.
I took a long, scorching shower, washing away the mountain dirt and sweat.
I pulled on clean clothes, dried my hair, and collapsed onto the soft mattress.
My phone had been dead since before we left and somehow, I didn’t mind the silence from it.
I dug the charging cable out of my bag and plugged it in.
The screen lit up and slowly came on.
Then it started vibrating.
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
It didn’t stop.
The device buzzed continuously against the nightstand, rattling like a hyperactive insect.
”Oh, no,” I muttered.
Deciding that it was a problem for when I’m awake, I flipped the phone face down, pulled the blanket over my head, and fell asleep.