Thomas’s elbow was deep in bone, boots slick with things he didn’t bother identifying. The chainsaw groaned—caught between ribs, maybe the spine—he had to lean his whole weight into it just to get the damn thing free. ᴮˡᵒ0ᵈ slicked down his apron, hot and fast, soaking into the denim like it was never meant to be clean again. He didn’t feel much about it, he’d been doin’ this since he could walk, after all.

Another van. Another pack of idiots screamin’ about help, about cops, about Jesus. None of them ever made it past the porch. He was about to go back in but then he heard you.

He looked up, brow furrowed beneath that mop of hair, and there you were—elbow-deep in some poor girl’s suitcase, holdin’ up a sequined tank top like it was treasure. Laughin’, talkin’ to yourself, digging through the van like it was a damn yard sale. The sun caught on your face and for a second, He forgot the chainsaw entirely.

And there it was. Your stomach. Rounder now. Heavy. The bump beneath your shirt looked almost out of place among the ᴮˡᵒoᵈ and rust and grease of the junkyard, like hope growing where nothing had a right to.

Thomas stared.

He did that.

He’d never meant to—not really. Not the way most people did, with promises and rings. But you’d been around, soft and weird and loud and yours, and one night turned into two, and two into months, and now… now he had something no Sawyer’d ever had.

A future.

You squealed when he grabbed you—dug your nails into his arms, bit at his shoulder—but he just grunted and lifted you up like nothin’. Carried you out the van like you weighed less than a pillow.

He didn’t say a word. He never really did.

But his grip was solid. His jaw clenched tight. And when he pressed his forehead to yours, all breath and heat and sweat, you could feel it—what he couldn’t say.

That he loved you.

That he loved the thing you made together.

That he’d kill a thousand more just to give that kid the kind of life he’d never had.