Willow. I shut that shit down in my head. Nope, not going there.

God, but the relief in her voice when she’d whispered my name and leaned closer… She didn’t hate me. I deserved her hatred, her absolute loathing, and instead she’d trusted me like the last six years had never happened.

“I think he’s pretty close to lucid right now,” Gideon said as he fell into step next to me. “You could go talk to him.”

“I think he was pretty close to lucid up by the ravine, and no, thank you. He’s doing just fine with Xander up there.” I jumped the three-foot ditch that currently housed a stream of spring runoff. How easily it all came back, muscle memory guiding me where the light failed. Now if only I’d remembered to exchange my Avs hat for one that covered my ears before heading out after Dad.

“You honestly think he would have shot—” Gideon grunted, then scrambled by the sound of it. “Jesus, hold on. Still part mountain goat, aren’t you?” He huffed, jogging to catch up.

“No, I don’t think he would have shot me if he’d recognized me in that moment,” I answered his question—and mine. “He definitely would have considered it, though. Hell, I bet he’s pictured it in his head a few times while he’s been perfectly lucid.”

“Some homecoming,” Gideon muttered as the house came into view across the clearing.

“Why do you think I stayed away so long?”

“Because you knew he’d shoot you on sight?” He rammed his shoulder into me, and I tensed for a millisecond. It was a familiar enough move from Gid, but no one got that close to me anymore without a direct invitation.

“Something like that.” My eyes drifted north, as if they could cut through the dark and forested ridge to the little grove of aspens where Sullivan lay at rest next to Mom and Uncle Cal.

“You’ll settle in. Hey, you can always come work with me at APD!” His teeth flashed in the dim lighting.

“Last time I checked, there are already five of you for our little town, and my name isn’t Hall, so the chances of me advancing are pretty much zero.”

“Dick,” Gideon muttered between fake coughs.

“Never pretended to be anything else.” Maybe I wasn’t popular. Maybe I was the unlikable son. The bad penny. The black sheep. Every fucking cliché there was when compared to Xander’s annoying perfection. I’d stopped caring about that twenty years ago and simply decided to embrace it. There was power in not giving a fuck.