Chapter 38 - The Burning of the Past
The drive back to the craftsman house on the bluff was silent.
When we walked through the front door, the house was warm and dark, save for the amber glow of a nightlight in the hallway where Oliver and Emma slept soundly in their beds.
Adrian didn't turn on the lights. He walked straight through to the back deck, pulling open the sliding glass door, and stepped out into the crisp autumn night air.
I followed him silently, wrapping a woolen shawl tightly around my shoulders as I stepped out onto the wooden planks.
The moon was a sliver of silver hanging over Haro Strait, casting a pale, shimmering path across the dark, rolling water.
Adrian stood at the edge of the deck, holding the metal toolbox he had brought back from the boat—the one containing old spare parts, rusted wiring, and the contaminated VHF radio transceiver.
Without a word, he opened the toolbox, lifted out the radio transceiver, and dropped it onto the slate stones near the outdoor fire pit.
He walked over to the firewood rack, grabbed a bundle of dry kindling and a box of matches, and knelt beside the fire pit. Within minutes, a bright, crackling flame leaped upward, casting dancing orange shadows across his face.
I walked over and sat down on the wooden bench beside the fire pit, watching him.
“You thought we were safe,” I said quietly, the words hanging softly in the night air. “You thought by moving to an island, the world would finally leave us alone.”
Adrian picked up the contaminated radio transceiver with a pair of metal tongs and dropped it directly into the heart of the roaring fire.
The plastic casing sputtered, hissed, and began to melt, turning black against the intense heat as the internal circuits flared with a brief, dying burst of green light before dissolving into ash.
“I didn't think the world would leave us alone, Sophia,” Adrian said, his voice steady, low, and unbreakable as he looked down into the fire. “I knew that men like Viktor Vance would always try to reach back into the past. But I also knew something else.”
“What’s that?”
Adrian turned his head, meeting my eyes across the fire, his expression softening into a look of absolute, unshakeable devotion.
“They can plant all the radios they want,” Adrian whispered, reaching out to take my hand across the warm stones. “They can send all the signals across the water. But they can’t touch what we built here. Because this isn't an empire built on fear anymore. It’s a family.”
I smiled, tears of relief pricking the corners of my eyes, and squeezed his hand back.
May you like
“No more ghosts?” I asked.
“No more ghosts,” Adrian promised.
