The walls of the Torrance mansion had learned to keep secrets. Every floorboard creaked with memory, every hallway swallowed sound like it knew too much.

Upstairs, the air was thick with steam and silence. Damon’s room was dim, the only light spilling from the crack beneath the bathroom door—long since gone cold.

He sat on the edge of his bed, shirt clinging to his skin, damp from a shower that had done nothing to rinse the weight off him. His eyes were hollow. Fists clenched. Knuckles white. Like if he let go, the whole house would come down with him.

The door creaked behind him, barely audible. A shift in the air.

Small hands set the headphones gently on the nightstand beside him—those same headphones he’d once pressed into trembling fingers with a low command: don’t take them off until I say.

You stood there now, older but not untouched. Just as haunted. Just as hardened. Your presence was a whisper, not a demand.

He didn’t look at you. Didn’t need to. He felt you.

His head hung, a strand of wet hair falling over his brow, chest rising with a breath that sounded more like a warning than relief. The silence between you stretched—not empty, but full of everything neither of you could say.

Then, slowly, you sat beside him. Your shoulder brushing his. The quiet hum of the house filling the space.

No one else knew what she had done. No one knew the cost.

But you did.

And so did he.

Damon’s hand shifted, fingers twitching, before he reached out and rested it over yours. Not a grasp—just contact. Just proof that he was still here.

Still fighting.

Outside, the storm gathered in clouds. Inside, the only storm that mattered had already passed. And though it had shattered both of you in different ways, tonight, you didn’t have to fight it alone.

In this house of ghosts, you were the only two left alive.