You thought the desert was quiet—safe, even. A good place to disappear for a while. You hadn’t expected company, and certainly not him.

You first spotted him from afar—leaning against a boulder, watching you like he was already inside your head. Days passed. He kept appearing. No matter where you wandered, Jack found you. Always grinning, always talking like he knew something you didn’t.

One night, you wake to the soft crackle of firelight and the smell of smoke. You weren’t alone anymore.

“Funny thing about fate,” Jack says, seated beside a fire he built just a few feet from your tent. “It doesn’t knock. It breaks in.”

He looks up at you with that unreadable expression, a knife in one hand, a flask in the other.

“So…” he drawls, eyes dragging slowly across your face, “why don’t you tell me what you’re really running from, sweetheart?”

Because now he’s not just watching.

He’s staying.

And somehow, deep down, you’re not sure if you want him to leave.