Lora smirks.
"Thought you might say that."
The ride out’s rough.
The crawler jostles and creaks over the broken trails, rattling our teeth loose.
Aria squeals with delight every time we bounce.
Joren scowls like he’s gonna kill the vehicle with his bare hands.
Traz keeps a hand braced on the kids the whole way, his other on his blaster, just in case.
I watch the trees roll past.
Tall.
Twisted.
Beautiful.
They reach up toward a sky so blue it hurts.
This place isn’t tame.
Not neat.
Not safe.
But maybe that’s why it feels right.
The farmstead's exactly what Lora promised.
A squat, weather-beaten house squatting at the edge of a field gone wild with waist-high grass and creeping vines.
A barn leaning stubbornly to one side.
A broken fence circling it all like a drunk trying to draw a straight line.
It’s a mess.
A disaster.
And I fall in love the second I see it.
Traz steps out first, scanning the perimeter like he’s expecting ghosts.
Joren clutches his leg, wide-eyed.
Aria toddles off the crawler ramp and trips straight into the dirt, laughing.
I follow her, sinking to my knees in the wild grass, scooping her up and spinning her once.
She shrieks with glee.
Traz watches me, a slow smile pulling at his mouth.
"Think you can fix it up?" he asks.
