“Juno, stop being stupid and come to me. You know I love you,” Marie said again, her voice carrying across the yard for what had to be the third time since they’d started waiting for the police to arrive. There was a strained insistence to it now, like she thought repetition alone would wear Juno down and make her comply.
Juno, who had retreated to sit on the edge of her porch, didn’t even bother looking at her this time. She had one elbow resting on her knee, with her phone still loosely in her hand. She had made the call, she had drawn the line, and now she was just waiting for it to be enforced.
“Okay, for the record,” Mike called out after a moment, clearly trying to fill the awkward, stretched silence, “I’m sorry for bringing her here.”
Juno let out a quiet breath through her nose, then tilted her head slightly in his direction without fully turning.
“Apologise by buying me some meat,” she said dryly.
Mike blinked at that, thrown for a second.
“Uh… aren’t you a lesbian?”
Juno slowly turned her head to look at him properly.
“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
He scratched the back of his head, giving a small, sheepish shrug.
“I know,” he admitted. “Today really proved that one, didn’t it.” He hesitated for a moment before nodding slightly toward the house. “Is it for that mon— uh… big scary lady?”
Juno snorted faintly at his attempt to correct himself.
“Yes. She loves my grilled sausages.”
There was a brief pause as Mike processed that, then his expression shifted into something more curious than anything else.
“So, are you two like… friends, ooorrr…?”
Juno’s lips curled into a small grin despite everything.
“Ooooorrr,” she echoed, letting the implication hang there.
“You’re with that monster?” Marie’s voice cut in, sharp and shrill, disbelief and outrage tangled together.
Neither of them acknowledged her.
“Yeah,” Juno continued, still looking at Mike. “Been dating for a few weeks.”
Mike blinked again, clearly trying to reconcile what he’d seen with what he was hearing.
“…Is she nice?” he asked finally.
Juno didn’t hesitate.
“Fuck yeah,” she said, a hint of warmth slipping into her tone now. “She’s a total sweetheart. Unlike some people who like to gaslight me and treat me like an idiot.”
Mike winced slightly and glanced over at Marie.
“She got you there,” he said, not unkindly, though he didn’t loosen his hold on her.
Marie tried to pull away again, her frustration mounting, but each time she did, Mike stopped her with a firm grip, keeping her from getting any closer to the house without actually hurting her. It was becoming a repetitive, awkward dance between them, one that was only being held together by his patience.
“Can I meet her?” Mike asked after a moment, his curiosity clearly getting the better of him.
Juno hesitated at that, her gaze flicking briefly toward the side of the house where she knew Niv was hiding, then back to him.
“Not right now,” she said carefully. “Her kind doesn’t trust humans very much.”
Mike nodded slowly, accepting that without pushing further.
“Oh. Okay.”
Juno’s attention snapped toward the sound the moment she heard tyres crunching over gravel again, the familiar, uneven rhythm of a vehicle making its way up the long drive. For a split second her chest tightened, her mind jumping to the worst possibility, but then she saw the shape of it as it came into view and the tension in her shoulders eased just a fraction.
It was a police car, finally.
She let out a slow breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, dragging a hand back through her hair as she straightened up from where she had been sitting on the porch. She was so done with this entire situation, so completely drained by Marie’s presence and everything she dragged along with her, and all she wanted now was for it to be over so she could move on and pretend, even just for a little while, that things were normal again. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The car rolled to a stop, gravel crunching loudly beneath it before the engine cut out, and a moment later both doors opened. Two officers stepped out, their posture calm and practiced, eyes already scanning the scene as they took everything in.
Juno stepped forward off the porch and lifted a hand, giving them a small wave to catch their attention.
“Over here,” she called, keeping her voice steady despite the lingering tension under her skin.
They approached her at an even pace, one of them, a slightly older man with a composed expression, taking the lead.
“Are you Juno Smith?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s me,” she replied, folding her arms loosely across her chest, more to ground herself than anything else.
“I’m Sergeant Wilkinson,” he said, giving a brief nod before glancing past her toward where Marie was being kept back. “Is that the woman who is trespassing?”
Juno followed his gaze for a moment, her jaw tightening slightly as she looked at Marie, still trying to argue her way out of Mike’s grip.
“Yeah,” she said flatly. “And stalking. I dropped everything and moved to the middle of nowhere to escape her.”
Wilkinson’s expression didn’t change much, but he gave a small, understanding nod.
“Understood. I’m going to need a statement from you,” he said, already pulling a notepad and pen from his pocket.
Juno exhaled quietly, then began to explain, forcing herself to stay calm and clear as she went over everything. She told him about Marie showing up uninvited, about being told to leave multiple times and refusing, about earlier in the day when things had gotten physical. Then, as she kept talking, more of it came out, things she hadn’t necessarily planned to say but couldn’t quite hold back anymore. The years of being talked over, dismissed, manipulated, the way Marie had always twisted things around to make Juno doubt herself, and finally, how she had somehow tracked her all the way out here after she had tried so hard to disappear.
Wilkinson listened without interrupting, occasionally jotting things down, his focus steady and professional the entire time.
When she finally finished, there was a brief pause.
“Okay,” he said, flipping his notebook closed with a soft tap. “We can trespass her. We’ll take her back into town. If she comes to your property again, give us a call, and we’ll remove her again and issue a fine.”
Juno stared at him for a second, the words taking a moment to properly settle in.
“That’s it?” she asked, her voice tightening despite her best efforts to keep it level. She felt that familiar frustration start to bubble up again in her chest. “After everything she’s done to me, she just gets a slap on the wrist?”
Wilkinson gave a small, sympathetic shrug, though his tone remained even.
“Sorry, Miss Smith. That’s all we can do for now.”
For now. Juno pressed her lips together, biting back everything else she wanted to say, the anger, the helplessness, the urge to scream that it wasn’t enough.
“Fine,” she said eventually, the word coming out clipped and flat.
It wasn’t satisfying, it wasn’t fair, but it was something, and right now, it was all she had at the moment.
Wilkinson gave Juno one last, brief nod before turning away and heading back toward the other officer, who was still dealing with Marie and Mike a short distance away. Juno stayed where she was, arms folded tight across her chest as if holding herself together, watching it all unfold with a mixture of relief and something that sat a lot heavier in her gut.
The second officer had shifted his stance so he was clearly in control of the situation now, positioning himself between Marie and the house, his voice firm but measured as he addressed her.
“Miss Marie Gunthrie, you are trespassing. We will be taking you to the station. Should you step foot on this property again, you will be subject to a fine of up to one thousand dollars. Do you understand?”
Marie opened her mouth, and for a moment Juno braced herself for the inevitable argument, the twisting of words, the deflection, the denial, all the things she had come to expect. She could practically hear it already, the way Marie would try to turn this around, make herself the victim, make Juno look unreasonable.
But then, unexpectedly, Marie just… stopped. Her expression flattened out into something almost neutral, and she gave a small, casual shrug.
“I understand,” she said, far too easily. “I won’t come back here.”
Juno’s stomach dropped.
That was easy. Way too easy. Nothing about Marie had ever been that simple, that compliant, and the way she said it, like it didn’t matter, like this was just a temporary inconvenience, set something cold and uneasy curling in the back of Juno’s mind.
“Good,” the officer said, clearly satisfied, even if Juno wasn’t. “We’ll be taking you to the station to get your details sorted.”
He gestured toward the patrol car and stepped aside, opening the back door for her.
“Get in, please.”
“Fine, fine,” Marie muttered, though there was no real bite to it now. She moved over without resistance and slipped into the back seat, and the officer shut the door behind her with a solid, final click.
Wilkinson glanced back toward Juno as he walked past, giving her another nod.
“Give us a call again if needed. Good bye, Miss Smith.”
“Yeah. Bye,” Juno replied, her tone clipped and flat.
The officers got back into their car, and a moment later the engine started again, the vehicle slowly turning before heading back down the gravel drive, taking Marie with them.
Juno stood there and watched until the car disappeared from sight.
So useful that she was absolutely certain she’d seen the last of Marie.
The thought came with a bitter, sarcastic edge, and she let out a slow breath, dragging a hand down her face as her shoulders sagged.
For a moment, her mind spiralled, jumping ahead to all the what-ifs. Maybe she should move again. Go even further this time, somewhere even more remote, somewhere no one could find her no matter how hard they tried. Maybe further south. But then just as quickly, something in her pushed back against that idea.
She had built something here. It wasn’t much, but it was hers. She had a home that she actually owned, she had people nearby who actually gave a damn, even if they were a bit much sometimes, and more than that, she had Niv. She wasn’t going to throw all of that away again because of one persistent, toxic piece of shit who refused to let go.
She exhaled slowly, trying to bleed some of the anger out of her system, but it clung stubbornly, tangled up with everything else she’d been holding down for years.
“I’ll, uh… head out too. See ya, Juno,” Mike said, breaking the silence as he shifted awkwardly near his ute.
Juno glanced over at him, her expression still tight, but not as sharp as before.
“Yeah. Bye. Bring sausages sometime, then I won’t hold a grudge against you.”
He huffed out a small, relieved laugh. “Got it.”
He climbed into his ute, started it up, and soon enough he was heading back down the same path the police had taken, leaving Juno alone in the quiet that followed.
She stood there for a few seconds longer, just listening to the fading sound of the engine until it disappeared completely, until she was absolutely sure she was alone.
And then everything she had been holding in finally snapped.
A raw, ragged scream tore out of her, loud and unrestrained as she threw her head back toward the sky, the sound echoing out across the property. It didn’t fix anything, didn’t undo what had happened, but it forced some of the pressure out of her chest.
Right after it, the tears came.
She folded in on herself, one hand coming up to cover her face as her shoulders shook, all those old wounds she thought had finally healed being ripped open again in the span of a single, miserable afternoon.
“Juno?” came a quiet voice from somewhere behind her, soft and careful in a way that made it clear Niv had heard everything.
Juno didn’t look up.
She couldn’t, not right now. Her face was wet, her breathing uneven, and she felt far too exposed, like all the effort she’d put into rebuilding herself over the past several months had just cracked open in an instant. She didn’t want Niv to see her like this, didn’t want to replace the version of herself she had been trying so hard to be, the lighter one, the one who laughed easily and explained things patiently, the one who wasn’t constantly bracing for the next emotional blow.
But that version of her wasn’t here right now. Right now there was just the raw, aching mess underneath.
“Might need a night to myself, Niv,” she said, her voice rough and uneven as she wiped at her face with the back of her hand, not even bothering to turn around. “Could you come back tomorrow?”
There was a small pause behind her, just long enough that Juno felt a flicker of guilt twist in her chest, like she was pushing away the one person who had actually been good to her.
“Okay,” Niv said quietly. “If that what you want. Can I help in any ways?”
Juno swallowed, her throat tight. “I’ll… I’ll be fine,” she said, though it came out weaker than she intended. “Just need to sort myself out. This has been a shit day.”
There was another pause, heavier this time, and for a second Juno thought Niv might argue, might insist on staying, on helping or something. Instead, she felt it, large, warm arms wrapping carefully around her from behind, not tight, just… reassuring.
The scent of the forest followed with it, that familiar, grounding smell of earth and leaves and something uniquely Niv, and for a brief moment Juno leaned back into it without thinking, her body betraying how much she needed the contact even as her mind insisted she should be alone.
Niv didn’t say anything, she just held her there for a few seconds, before slowly letting go.
The warmth faded, replaced by the cool open air, and a moment later Juno heard the soft, receding sound of movement as Niv retreated, giving her the space she had asked for without question.
Juno stayed where she was for a while after that, staring down at the ground, trying and failing to get her breathing back under control. The silence pressed in around her, broken only by the faint sounds of the forest and the distant wind, and without Niv’s presence, everything felt heavier again.
Eventually, when standing there stopped helping at all, she turned and made her way inside. The house felt emptier than usual. Too quiet and still, like something important had been taken out of it.
She moved through it on autopilot, barely thinking as she went to the kitchen and pulled out one of the bottles she’d been saving, then another, her hands moving without much care as she grabbed a glass and then decided she didn’t really need one.
The first few mouthfuls burned, but she kept going anyway, chasing that dulling edge she knew would come if she just pushed through it.
Time blurred after that.
One bottle turned into more than one, the room slowly softening around the edges as the tight knot in her chest loosened just enough for her to breathe without it hurting quite so much. It didn’t fix anything, didn’t make the thoughts go away, but it took the edge out of them, and right now that was all she wanted.
By the time she finally stumbled her way to bed, she barely remembered how she got there.
She collapsed onto the mattress without bothering to change, the faint scent of Niv still clinging to the sheets, and for a brief moment, that alone made her chest ache all over again.
Then exhaustion and alcohol dragged her under, and everything went dark.