Chapter 24: Wrath of an Exile: Chapter 23

November 7

“MIT’s loss,” he muses, a lazy grin tugging at his lips. “Who wouldn’t want a girl who recited the first fifty digits of pi while drunk just to shut me up?”

The sun has fully risen now, its light unapologetically stretching over the town below, bright and relentless, erasing every shadow we’d once hidden in. Up here, though, I still feel cocooned, sheltered from the harshness of the day.

I laugh, pulling my knees to my chest, trying to chase away the chill that’s settled into my bones. “Flattering only works when it’s genuine, Sinclair.”

The metallic tang of rust mingles with the faint scent of Jude’s hoodie I’m wearing—leather-bound books drenched in the inky scent of Black Ice that lingers like smoke. He’s leaning against the railing, his silhouette standing out against the pale blue sky.

It’s comforting, wrapping around me, pulling me closer and closer to sleep.

I don’t want to leave just yet. Just a few more minutes.

Jude leans against the railing, relaxed silhouetted against the pale sky, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I wrote you a fucking poem on the spot at 8:00 a.m., Geeks. I don’t know how much more genuine I can get.”

“Is it finished yet?”

His fingers pause over the screen, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. The soft glow of his phone competes with the morning light, making him look caught between two worlds.

After a moment, he hands it over, a silent invitation that feels heavy, not because of the words themselves but because of what they might mean.

“Read it to me.” My voice is tinged with sleep as I rest my cheek against my knees, the exhaustion in my bones making everything feel softer, slower.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Asshole.”

“Do you want me to read it or not?”

“Yes, sorry.” A sleepy smile tugs at my lips. “The stage is yours, Poet Laureate.”

The sunlight filters through his hair, making it look almost golden, a sharp contrast to the ink winding up his arms.

“Like a plant seeking space in a pot too little. Roots bound for comfort, suffocate your change. You pleaded for the first fracture. Girl trapped in a pot, your eyes begged for agony. Do you yearn for my soil, drenched in heartache?”

His voice is slow and careful as he begins reading, the words rolling off his tongue. Even though the poem hadn’t been planned, the way he reads sounds practiced, as if he’s spent lifetimes reading words out loud.

I barely focus on the lines, too distracted by the way he looks in the early light. The sun highlights the scar beneath his lip. A mark, I’d learned tonight, he’d gotten while riding his bike for the first time.

“Girl turned tree, you see how beautiful your shattering is to me? Branches stretch toward a sky you’ll never reach, roots dig deep, searching for something that’s never there.”

I watch him—his lips moving, jaw tensing slightly with each line, fingers gripping the phone a little too tight. The lilac bruises on his knuckles should make him look harder, rougher, but instead, they add to his gentleness.

Jude’s a worn novel, edges frayed but still worth reading.

“Do you feel it?” he asks, tone softening. “The breaking inside you, splintering under the weight of everything you wanted to be?”

The words slip into my bloodstream like a slow, quiet drug, warm and heavy. I bite my lip, trying to ground myself in the moment, to hold on to this rare softness. I just want to stay here a little longer. Where the possibilities of the world seem endless again and not so goddamn daunting.

“Look at you,” he breathes, eyes leaving the phone to find mine, his brows twitching, “sprouting from the cracks. Ruin in full bloom.”

I meet his gaze, not knowing what to say or if I even need to say anything at all.

There’s something tender between us, fragile and unspoken, like the morning itself—a beginning, an ending, and something more that can never exist outside our universe.

“Shit,” I hiss as the ratchet in my grip slips and crashes against the concrete floor.

The sharp clatter snaps me back, cutting through the fog of memory like a cold splash of water. I blink hard, refocusing as the familiar scent of motor oil and metal settles around me like an old friend.

I bend down to pick up the tool, pausing just long enough to consider smacking my own head with it before I let out a frustrated sigh.

This is why we don’t let our memories hijack our brain while wrestling with tools, Phi.

The garage is quiet, with the late-afternoon sunlight streaming in through the wide windows, casting long shadows across the floor. Posters of old racing legends and Reign’s childhood trophies clutter the walls and shelves, while old car parts lie scattered across the concrete, waiting for someone to breathe life back into them.

This garage isn’t just a workshop. It’s home.

A place where Dad taught me how to change my first tire and where Reign once dared me to lick an exhaust pipe to prove my love of cars. I did it, of course, but only because I was six and stupidly determined to impress my big brother.

I slip the ratchet back into place, fingers wrapping around it with practiced ease. The movement is steady, mechanical—I know this car better than I know most people. It’s the same Nissan that’s been my project since high school. I begged Mom for months to buy it from the junkyard for me, desperate to build it from scratch.

And I had.

Piece by piece until the Silvia was everything I’d imagined for my dream car. Vixen printed plainly on the tags, the origin of my deviant nickname.

But even here, with the comforting weight of tools in my hands and the smell of fresh oil in the air, I can’t escape the ghost that is Jude Sinclair. He lingers in the back of my mind, a constant presence that refuses to be ignored. Since that night at the water tower, he’s been everywhere and nowhere all at once—hovering on the edges, never close enough to touch but always close enough to feel.

He’s been giving me space, keeping his distance. I know it’s intentional. He’s letting me come to him, putting the ball in my court, protecting my pride from facing the music of what was shared that night there.

It’s a kindness I don’t deserve.

I tighten the last spark plug, my fingers moving automatically while my mind drifts back to the tangled mess we’ve made of our lives. Jude and I are in dangerous waters now, and I have no fucking idea how to navigate them. We’ve crossed lines—lines I should’ve kept clear, lines that don’t give a damn about our last names or the history that runs through our veins.

Jude was willing to let me hate him. He was prepared to be the villain in my story so I wouldn’t have to face the worst parts of myself. He let me blame him for everything, just to keep me from confronting my own guilt over the fire.

I don’t deserve his forgiveness for that fire or for the chain of events it set off in his life. But he gave it to me anyway, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

The ratchet slips again, my hand fumbling as I try to adjust the angle. I curse under my breath, shaking out the sting in my palm, and focus back on the engine.

All my life, Ponderosa Springs has taught me who the Sinclair family is. They’re spineless, vile humans with no mercy and no regret for the havoc they reek.

But since Jude moved in, he’s shown me that he isn’t any one of those things.

None.

Yeah, he brutally killed someone with his bare hands, but he did that to protect me. To keep someone from hurting me.

And on that water tower? He was so fucking soft with me.

When I least expected it, when I didn’t even realize how desperately I needed it, he gave me a place where I could be real, stripped of every pretense and mask I’ve built over the years.

Up there on that tower, with dawn creeping over the horizon, I let everything unravel. I laid bare every jagged, ugly part of me. And Jude didn’t flinch. He didn’t try to make it pretty or fix it.

He just stayed, his silence more comforting than any words could have been.

Despite every rumor, every warning, I can’t hate him anymore.

No matter how much my last name says I should.

No matter how hard I’ve made myself to the outside world, a quiet, tender heart still beats within me. And it refuses to hate him. Not when he is the only one in four years that made her feel safe enough to beat freely around.

A gentle tug on my earbud pulls me from the spiral of traitorous thoughts, and the moment I catch the scent of tobacco and smoke, heat floods my cheeks.

Caught—without doing a damn thing. But that’s only because the person now standing next to me has an unnerving talent for reading my mind.

“Thought I’d find you here.”

Dad’s voice is warm, a little tired, and a whole lot familiar. It carries the weight of too much responsibility, like a long day of judgment weighing on his shoulders.

I glance up from under the hood, spotting him in his work clothes—tie loosened, shirtsleeves rolled up to expose his tattooed arms, creases of a long day softened by the dim garage light.

He looks out of place among the grease, a judge in a sanctuary of steel and oil. Yet there’s something about him that fits here, like this space knows him—remembers the man he was before life settled on his shoulders.

“Long day, Judge?” I tease, a smirk tugging at my lips.

He snorts, shaking his head as he leans against the workbench. The day’s burden clings to him, but the faintest lift at the corners of his mouth hints at a smile.

“You could say that. Never gets any easier.”

I wipe my hands on the grease-stained rag, the question bubbling up before I can stop it.

“Why did you become a judge if it stresses you the fuck out so much? Why not a mechanic or something you actually enjoy?”

It’s a Van Doren legacy to be part of the judicial system, a path I knew was laid out for him. But I’ve always wondered why—why he chose it, why he kept at it when it seemed to weigh him down.

Dad pauses, steady hazel eyes searching mine, a depth of understanding that comes from years spent in the courtroom.

“I know how far people will go when they’re desperate for justice. What it costs to get it yourself. No one should have to go through what our family did to find peace.”

His words hang heavy, the unspoken truths weaving through the air between us.

My uncles, my father—they carry a shadow, a reputation that people respect not because of their titles but because of the darkness woven into their pasts.

The kind of fear they evoke isn’t the kind that comes from money or accolades—it’s something deeper, something earned. A legacy built on secrets and the blood they’ve spilled to protect what’s theirs.

I know it. I’ve heard enough whispered conversations to piece it together. Atlas and I perfected the art of eavesdropping during family holidays, absorbing the confessions that slipped out after too many glasses of wine.

That guy in the woods they helped me get rid of? He wasn’t their first dead body.

“Besides, I look fucking incredible in a tie.” Dad shifts, smirking a bit, breaking the tension like he always does with humor.

I roll my eyes, unable to suppress a smile. “Gag me. You sound like Uncle Thatch.”

He chuckles, warmth radiating as his gaze drifts around the garage—Ten coveted JDM cars gleam under the overhead lights, polished gems in a crown of grease.

This is home—his kingdom. A place built with sweat and dedication, wrench by wrench, bolt by bolt.

When his eyes land back on me, he leans closer to peer under the hood of my Silvia.

He raises a brow. “Graveyard?”

The echo of my mint gum popping snaps in the air as I shake my head. “The Port.”

He sighs, dragging a tattooed hand over his face, thumb and forefinger pressing into his eyes. “Phi, for the love of all things holy, don’t make me fish you out of the Pacific tonight.”

“Dude, wrong kid,” I scoff, waving the ratchet like a weapon. “Give that speech to Reign. I actually know what the fuck I’m doing behind the wheel.”

Dad groans, heavy with exasperation but laced with pride. “Just don’t dump the clutch, or you’ll lose traction right out of the gate. Feel the grip, let⁠—”

“Let the tires bite the asphalt before I give it full throttle. Don’t redline it, shift just before the sweet spot where the torque’s still pulling hard?” I finish, smirk spreading wider.

“You know”—he shakes his head, lips twitching in a fight against a smile—“I used to love how much you were like me when you were a kid. Then you learned to walk, and I realized I’d created my very own heart attack.”

“Oh, fuck you,” I laugh, shoving him playfully, the kind of nudge that says I love you in our language.

When I got my learner’s permit, I didn’t get the same cautious driving lessons most kids get. There were no slow laps around empty parking lots, no white-knuckled merges onto the highway with a nervous parent praying to survive the ride.

No, Rook Van Doren had other plans for me.

He threw me behind the wheel of a Nissan Fairlady Z and took me to the Port. There were no second chances, no hand-holding. Not until shifting gears was burned into my muscle memory did he even think about taking me to the Graveyard. He made me earn every damn stripe, every ounce of respect for the road, like it was sacred—something untouchable.

And now, he wonders why I’m an adrenaline junkie.

Like, really, dude?

You practically built me from scratch, forged me in speed and gasoline, and now you’re surprised I came out with a lead foot? It’s like creating a shark and then wondering why it likes to swim.

“Are things with…” He clears his throat, awkwardness thick in the air. “Jude going alright?”

We’d talked after the Gauntlet—when I laid everything out, told him the truth. I made it crystal clear Jude was only protecting me, but I could still see the worry, the doubt flickering in his eyes, a shadow he couldn’t shake.

And it’s still there now, gnawing at him, and it fucking irks me.

“Fine.” I shrug, the lie sliding off my tongue. “He’s just another roommate.”

“He’s not being inappropriate or trying to⁠—”

“No, Dad,” I cut him off, twisting the tool in my hands harder than necessary. Metal bites into my palm as irritation flares hot in my chest. “It’s nothing like that.”

It pisses me off, the way no one—myself included—ever gives Jude the benefit of the doubt.

I hate everything the name Sinclair stands for. I hate what Easton Sinclair did to my family. I hate what Stephen Sinclair did to Ponderosa Springs, what he did to the women who should’ve been safe in this town. Their legacy is rotten, a festering wound that’s never healed.

I get why my dad’s so protective. I do. But Jude isn’t them.

I want him to be. Shit, I need him to be. It would be much easier if he were just another Sinclair—another monster carved from the same corrupt tree. But he’s not.

At the very least, Jude deserves to be given a chance. The chance to be the apple that’s fallen far, far from the poisoned tree.

“I hear you.” Dad’s voice softens, ruffling my hair before pulling me into a hug. His arms wrap around me, solid and strong, like they always have. “I just worry, kid. Wanna make sure you’re alright.”

It’s such an easy, familiar gesture that anchors me, making the chaotic world still for a moment. I feel the warmth of him, the solidness, and suddenly, I’m pulled back.

Back to a time when life was simple, before it became this tangled web of secrets and expectations.

I’m a kid again, sneaking downstairs after bedtime, knowing he’d let me stay up just a little longer. We’d sit on the living room floor, surrounded by scattered LEGO pieces, building castles and cars, whispering and laughing like we had all the time in the world.

Back then, Dad was more than just my father—he was my best friend. The guy who could fix anything, build anything, and make everything okay with just a joke and ice cream.

Somewhere along the way, life got complicated. We drifted apart, like two ships caught in different currents. The distance between us grew, subtle at first, until it felt like we were orbiting different planets.

But standing here in his arms, I can still feel it—that bond, that unshakable connection that no amount of time or the lack of shared DNA could ever sever.

“I know, Dad,” I murmur against his chest, hugging him a little tighter. “I know.”

“I miss you,” he whispers against the top of my hair, voice rough. “Where have you been, Sweet Phi?”

His words punch a hole in my chest because I know he isn’t asking about where I’ve been physically. He’s asking where I went.

The girl who used to light up every room, the kid who raced him to the garage after dinner, who didn’t need a reason to laugh or share a secret with him.

The girl who trusted him with everything.

What he doesn’t realize is that the daughter he’s asking about is gone.

And I don’t know how to tell him that the version of me he still holds on to, the one he believes in so fiercely, died a long time ago.

How do you tell the man who loves you more than anything that the person he’s clinging to is just a memory?

How do you look into the eyes of the one person who’s always seen the best in you and admit that you’re not that person anymore—and maybe you never will be?

“Right here,” I choke out, barely managing the lie.

He exhales softly, his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek. When he pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, I see the search in his gaze—looking for answers I can’t provide.

“I know we’ve been out of sync for a while,” he says quietly, his tone steady yet laced with pain. “I don’t know what I did…or what changed. But no matter how far you think you’ve wandered, no matter how lost you feel, I’ve always got you. You’re never too far gone. Home’s always right here.”

His finger taps lightly over his heart, and that simple movement feels like it splits me open.

Despite everything—the damage I’ve caused, the depths I’ve fallen—he still sees me as his daughter. He still believes I’m worth saving.

For a moment, I teeter on the edge, ready to break, to let it all spill out—the pain, the secrets, the guilt.

I want to crumble, to let him fix it like he used to when I was small, when the world was less complicated. I want him to chase away the monsters in my closet one last time, like he always did just before bed.

But I can’t.

This burden is mine. It always has been.

“Wanna help me finish up?” I ask, deflecting.

“So much like your mother,” he mutters, poking my forehead playfully. “Stubborn.”

I roll my eyes, a smile tugging at my lips as he takes the ratchet from my hands, helping me finish working on my car.

I never let anyone get close for a reason.

I want people to be afraid of hurting me.

I wear my anger like a crown, reigning over a kingdom of distance and intimidation. It’s not just a shield; it’s a throne, forged from every scar, every betrayal. I built it high, ensuring that fear was the first thing anyone felt when they laid eyes on me, the first wall they hit when they dared to come too close.

I honed my edges to a razor’s precision, turning words into weapons. I learned how to wield bitchy like an art form—one that left its marks quickly, cleanly, before anyone could strike back. I mastered the role of the mean girl, the one who was always two steps ahead in the game of cruelty.

Fear meant power.

It meant I would never again be at someone else’s mercy, never again be the girl left bleeding while someone else walked away unscathed.

I became everything I’d wanted to be: untouchable, unbreakable, a vicious bitch too dangerous to challenge.

But what I never accounted for was the loneliness that came with it—the suffocating quiet of a throne room with no one left standing inside it.

I’m lonely.

I’ve been lonely for a while—I know that. But the ache of it, the way it claws at me now? That’s new.

Jude is the reason for that.

Not the loneliness—that’s always been mine. It’s the familiar weight I’ve learned to carry, a constant companion I chose for myself. I wore my solitude like armor, something I could control, a second skin that kept the world at bay. But the ache of it? The sharpness that’s carved into the empty spaces I thought I’d forgotten?

That’s him.

Jude gave me a universe where I could be me.

But that’s what makes it unbearable now—the knowing.

Knowing that just down the hall, there’s a space where I could let my guard down. Where I could breathe again without feeling like I have to carry the weight of everything alone. A space where the softer version of Phi, the one I’ve hidden for so long, could exist without fear.

But that place is with Jude, and to cross that threshold would mean stepping into enemy territory.

It’s forbidden, a house with walls I was raised to never enter.