The first thing she noticed was the scent.
Smoke not from the hearth, but something older, sour, tangled in memory.
Arden turned slowly toward the doorway, her hand unconsciously reaching for the frame. The box from Daniel sat half-open on the kitchen table, the journal still closed, but it felt like it was bleeding into the air.
Cole was outside, chopping kindling again, his shirt clinging to his back, sweat glistening along the line of his spine. He looked like he belonged here. Like he was built for peace. But she knew better.
They both were forged in fire.
And fire remembers.
The knock came just before noon.
Three slow, deliberate strikes.
Arden froze. She hadn't been expecting anyone. And in this valley, nobody came by chance.
She opened the door to find a man in a black coat, eyes too pale to be trusted.
"Mrs. Hart?" he asked politely.
Her breath caught at the sound of her married name.
"I'm not—" she started.
The man smiled, as if he already knew the lie. "Mr. Hart sent me. He asked me to deliver something."
He handed her a small black box.
No card. No explanation.
Just the same wax seal: D.
She didn't open it until after the stranger left—his tires crackling down the gravel road, leaving only the scent of iron and wet earth in his wake.
Inside the box was a locket.
Gold. Heavy. Familiar.
It had once belonged to Jamie.
And Arden remembered clearly—she'd buried it with him.
Her knees buckled. She caught herself on the edge of the table, the locket falling to the floor with a sharp metallic note that rang far too loud.
Cole rushed in.
"What happened?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't.
He followed her gaze to the locket. Picked it up.
Recognition hit his face like a wave.
'This isn't possible," he said.
But it was.
And now they both knew:
Daniel had gone too far.
He wasn't just watching.
He was digging up the dead.
The fire burned low, but Arden felt cold.
She sat on the couch, the locket lying open on her palm. Inside was a photo—faded but unmistakable. Jamie. Twelve years old. Smiling. Unaware that time would cut his life short.
Beside it, where there used to be a blank half of the locket, was now something else: a message etched in gold.
~Some graves were dug too shallow.
Cole paced by the window, his jaw tight, fists clenched at his sides.
"This isn't just cruelty," he muttered. "It's a message. He's playing with you."
"With us,' Arden said.
He stopped pacing.
She looked up at him, eyes wet but unflinching. "You think Daniel doesn't know you're here?"
Silence. Then a slow nod.
"Why didn't you tell me about the letter?" he asked.
"Because if I said it out loud, I'd have to admit he never really left. Not my life. Not my head."
Cole crossed to her, kneeling in front of her.
"You're not his anymore," he said softly. "You're not the woman who needed him."
She blinked slowly. "Then who am I, Cole? Because I look in the mirror and all I see is collateral."
He reached up, touching her cheek. "You are fire that survived. You are the storm that followed."
For a heartbeat, she let herself believe him.
Until the knock came again.
This time, it wasn't a stranger.
This time, it was Daniel.
She opened the door, and there he was—damp from the fog, dressed in charcoal gray, eyes gleaming with the same cool cruelty she remembered from the night he testified.
He smiled.
"Darling," he said. "You look well."
Cole was at her side in an instant, blocking the doorframe, body rigid with fury.
Daniel didn't flinch. If anything, he looked amused.
"Still territorial, I see," he murmured.
"What do you want?" Arden asked, her voice like frost.
Daniel's smile widened.
"To finish what we started."
And then he held up a key.
One she hadn't seen in a decade.
The key to Jamie's old locker. The one the police had sealed. The one that vanished after the trial.
"I think it's time we opened the last door," he said.
And just like that, everything she thought she'd buried clawed its way back to the surface.
The key in Daniel's hand glinted like a blade.
Arden stared at it, feeling the edges of her world shift—fracture. That key belonged to a life frozen in time. The locker had been sealed after Jamie's death, the contents too painful, too raw. She remembered standing outside the room, hands shaking, refusing to cross the threshold.
"No," she said, stepping back.
Daniel tilted his head, the gesture soft but lined with mockery. "I thought you wanted the truth, Arden."
"I wanted peace."
"You can't have both," he whispered.
Cole moved like a loaded spring. "You need to leave."
Daniel's eyes snapped to him. "And you need to realize you were always the second chapter. Not the story."
That did it. Cole stepped forward, but Arden grabbed his wrist—tight.
"Don't," she said, not to protect Daniel, but to protect Cole from who she knew she could become when her world slipped this far off center.
Daniel smiled. "That's what I've always admired about you, Arden. You know how to keep the fire banked until you need it."
He dropped the key at her feet and walked away, as calm as if they'd merely exchanged pleasantries.
When he was gone, Cole shut the door and locked it. His breath came fast, ragged. "If he touches you again—"
"He won't," she said flatly.
"But he will try," he replied. "You know that, don't you?"
She knelt, picked up the key with trembling fingers.
"Jamie kept things from me," she whispered. "Letters. Notes. He was afraid of someone."
"You think it was Daniel?"
"I don't know. But if Daniel has this key, he's had access to it all along."
Cole's silence was answer enough.
She turned the key over in her palm, already feeling its weight settle into her bones.
"I have to open it," she said.
"Then I'm going with you."
She looked up, startled.
"No more running, Arden. No more secrets. Not from him. And not from me."
And though her throat burned with fear, she nodded.
Because the past wasn't done with her.
But this time, she wouldn't face it alone.
That night, sleep didn't come.
Arden lay awake beside Cole, staring at the ceiling beams, listening to the creaks in the floorboards as the wind pushed against the windows like a breath that never quite reached the lungs.
She turned toward him.
His chest rose and fell steadily. But his hand was curled into a fist, even in sleep.
And in that moment, she realized: Cole was afraid too.
Not of Daniel.
Of losing her again.
She rose quietly, took the key from the nightstand, and walked barefoot across the cold floor. In the living room, she stared at the fireplace, where the last ember of the evening's fire had faded into coal.
She held the key tight.
What are you still hiding, Jamie?
Her brother had never been the villain in her story. But maybe he wasn't the hero either.
Suddenly, her phone buzzed.
Blocked number. One message.
~ Check the ashes. He left more than a memory.
She froze.
Then dropped to her knees and reached into the hearth, hand shaking.
Her fingers brushed something metallic beneath the soot.
A flash drive.
She pulled it free, coated in grime, but intact.
And she knew—this hadn't been there yesterday.
Daniel had already been inside the house.
Her breath caught. "Cole—" she whispered, already turning.
But behind her, the door creaked open.
And a voice, smooth as glass, said, "You always were better at finding ghosts than burying them."
Arden stood slowly, the flash drive clutched tight in her hand.
"Daniel," she said, not surprised.
He stepped into the flickering shadows, a storm in a suit. "Let's not waste time pretending. You want answers. I want redemption."
"Redemption?" she scoffed. "You want control."
He smiled, and for once, it didn't reach his eyes.
"Maybe. But I also want you to understand something, Arden."
He stepped closer.
"You weren't the only one who lost someone in that fire."
She stared at him, the space between them crackling with old wounds.
"I lost you."
A pause.
Then: "And I intend to get you back. One way or another."
Before she could move, Cole appeared in the hallway, gun drawn, eyes locked on Daniel.
"Step away from her."
Daniel didn't flinch.
He simply looked at Arden.
And smiled.
"Next time, bring better locks."
Then he turned and vanished into the dark, the door left open behind him, letting in the cold.
Arden closed her eyes.
The locket. The key. The flash drive.
Jamie's secrets weren't buried.
They were coming to the surface—fast.
And Daniel wasn't chasing revenge.
He was chasing her.