Chapter 50: THE DOOR SEALS

Georgia

Darcy’s hand stays steady at my back as we cross the last stretch of the ballroom floor, the noise and warmth of the gala falling away behind us with every step. I don’t look at anyone else, don’t search the crowd for Mandi or Alexa, don’t let myself think too hard about anything except getting through those doors and out into the cold where I can finally breathe without the whole room pressing in on me. My heels feel too loud against the marble, each click marking the distance between who I was an hour ago and whoever I’m becoming now.

I can feel him behind us without turning. That same pull I’ve felt since the very first day on the cobblestones, quieter now, heavier, following me all the way to the threshold like it isn’t ready to let go even though I already have. My chest aches with it, a dull, persistent throb that has nothing to do with the cold air waiting on the other side of the doors and everything to do with the three words still looping through my head, over and over, refusing to quiet down no matter how fast I walk.

She’s beneath me.

I press the heel of my hand briefly against my sternum, like I can physically hold the ache in place long enough to keep walking through it. Darcy notices, of course he notices, his hand tightening slightly at my back in what might be comfort or might be something closer to satisfaction. I don’t have the energy left tonight to tell the difference, and some small, exhausted part of me decides it doesn’t matter which one it actually is. All I want is air. All I want is distance. Whatever comes after that, I’ll figure out once I can breathe again.

Puck

I don’t move.

Every instinct in me screams to cross the room, to stop her, to say the one true thing I haven’t let myself say all night. All these weeks, since the moment I first caught her arm and felt the whole shape of my life rearrange itself around a stranger. I don’t move. I stand there and let her walk toward the door with another wolf’s hand resting easy at her back, and it feels like tearing something out of my own chest with my bare hands, slow and deliberate, like even the pain is being made to last. I could stop this. I could ruin everything by stopping this. That’s the problem - there was never a version of tonight where both of those things weren’t true at once.

Liam appears at my shoulder, quiet, careful, the way he always gets when he can feel exactly how close to the edge I am. "Puck."

I don’t answer right away. I can’t. Something’s happening in my chest that I don’t have full control over anymore, some old, ancient thing rising up beneath the surface of me that’s been held back by sheer will for longer than I can stand tonight, longer than I’ve had to hold it back in years. It claws upward like it’s been waiting for permission, like her walking away is the exact kind of grief it’s been starving for.

"Puck," Liam says again, lower this time, a warning wrapped inside my own name.

"I know," I say.

The words don’t come out right. My voice has dropped somewhere below human register, rough and low, scraping out of my throat like something that doesn’t belong to a person anymore. I feel it happen before I hear it, some current running through the room, a few heads turning near us, a young wolf near the punch table going suddenly, instinctively still, the fine hairs on the back of Liam’s neck visibly rising beside me even through his jacket. Even the chandeliers above us seem to hum faintly, like the whole room has picked up on the shift I’m barely holding back.

I don’t try to fix my voice. I don’t think I could, not right now, not with her walking away from me and taking something with her I don’t know how to get back, something I never got the chance to properly name out loud before it slipped through the door ahead of her. I wonder if she’ll ever know how close I came to shouting it after her anyway, consequences be damned.

"Let her go," Liam murmurs, not unkind, just quiet, practical, the only thing either of us can actually do right now.

"I am," I say, and it costs me more than anything I’ve ever said in my life. It costs me pieces of myself I’m not sure I’ll get back, not tonight, not ever.

Georgia

The cold air hits my face the second Darcy pushes the door open, sharp and immediate after the warmth of the ballroom, and for one brief, unsteady moment, something in me wants to turn around.

I almost do it. My feet actually slow, some old, stubborn part of me refusing to just walk away without one more look, one more chance to understand any of what just happened tonight, the overheard words, the silence, the steady, burning gold I watched settle into his eyes from across the room during the dance. I think about his hand catching my arm that very first day, burning hot, impossibly gentle. I think about the storm walk, the almost touch in the library, the warmth that used to radiate off him even from two inches away. None of it prepared me for how much it would hurt to walk away from him now, deliberately, with someone else’s hand guiding me forward instead.

I don’t turn around.

I keep walking, Darcy’s hand steady and warm at my back, guiding me forward into the cold, and behind me I hear the heavy ballroom doors beginning to swing shut, the noise and light and warmth of the gala narrowing slowly into a thin, closing seam of gold.

Just before they seal completely, I glance back.

Puck is standing exactly where I left him, framed for one last second in the narrowing gap of light, and across that entire distance, our eyes meet. For a heartbeat, it feels like no one else exists in that ballroom at all, like the space between us has folded down into something small and unbearable.

In the dark, for just an instant, right before the door closes fully between us, his eyes glow.

Not flash. Not flicker. Glow, steady and unmistakable, gold burning bright enough to cut through the shrinking sliver of light between us, bright enough that it feels less like a reflection and more like something looking back at me from somewhere I don’t have a map for. It’s the last thing I see of him before the door clicks shut completely, sealing the warmth and the music and the version of him I still don’t have a name for on the other side of it.

I stand there for one more second in the cold, dark night, staring at the closed door, half expecting it to swing open again, half hoping it will. Some reckless, aching part of me even imagines running back, pounding on the wood until someone lets me through, until he explains everything the words wouldn’t let him say inside.

It doesn’t open.

My hand lifts slightly toward the door before I catch myself and let it fall back to my side. Behind me, Darcy waits by the car, patient, unbothered, the cold already settling into my skin the way it settled weeks ago into a small silver pin I still haven’t taken off. I make myself stop looking.

Then I turn and walk toward the car, and the image follows me the whole way there: that steady gold light, burning behind a door that’s already shut, waiting for me to understand what it means.