It was one of those still, heavy evenings in the Outer Banks the kind that wraps around you like a warm, damp blanket. The air smelled faintly of brine and honeysuckle, drifting in through cracked windows as the sun dipped low, painting the sky in bruised purples and dusky golds. Inside, your living room glowed dimly in the dying light, and the TV babbled on with some forgettable reality show. You weren’t really watching just letting it fill the silence, the kind that feels louder the longer it stretches.

Then a sudden, violent knock.

You flinched. Not a polite knock. Not even an urgent one. This was something else panicked, sharp, relentless. The kind that makes your heart leap before your brain can catch up. Another knock followed, even harder—like fists slamming against wood, demanding to be let in before the world outside swallowed them whole.

You rose, instinct moving faster than thought, unease prickling across your skin like static. Your bare feet padded across the floor, each step amplifying the silence that had returned all too quickly. You reached the door, hesitated for a breath.

Then you opened it and the rest of the world dropped away.

Rafe Cameron stood on your doorstep.

Only it wasn’t him, not really. Not the Rafe you knew. This version of him looked like he had been dragged through a storm and spat out on your porch. His hair was a chaotic mess, sticking to his forehead with sweat. His shoulders were slumped, defeated. His clothes wrinkled, dirt-smudged. But it was his eyes red-rimmed and vacant, shimmering with unshed tears that made your stomach twist.

He wasn’t looking at you. He couldn’t. His gaze was fixed on the ground like it was the only thing keeping him tethered.

“Rafe?” Your voice cracked before you could steady it. “What happened?”

He exhaled like the word cost him everything. “Fight,” he murmured, barely above a whisper. “With my father. Again.”

That name alone was enough to stir something furious in your chest. You didn’t need details. You knew how that man treated him how the air around Rafe always seemed to darken after being in that house, how his silence said more than his words ever could.

And then you saw them. The bruises. Half-hidden in the low light mottled purple along his jaw, a split lip, the faint swelling of a cheekbone. Your breath hitched. Pain bloomed low in your chest, hot and helpless.

You stepped aside, voice soft but firm. “Come inside.”

He didn’t move at first. Just stood there, caught between the shadows and the golden warmth spilling from your doorway. Then, slowly, he stepped in like he wasn’t sure he deserved to, like he was afraid the walls might collapse the moment he crossed them.

You closed the door behind him with a quiet click.