The paved path cut cleanly through the forest, a deliberate line of dark stone between tall bare trunks that rose on either side like ribs.
Snow lay undisturbed beyond its edges, smooth and bright under the late morning sun, each patch catching the light in a way that made the whole stretch of woods look staged, as if someone had gone through and placed winter there by hand. The air carried cold without bite, thin and clear, the kind that sharpened sound more than it numbed skin, though neither of them reacted to it in any visible way.
Their footsteps landed in a steady rhythm against the pavement, the only consistent noise beneath Adam's voice, which had been running without interruption since they'd left the church behind them.
"You came again," he said, like this was a conclusion he'd been building toward for a while and had finally decided to say out loud. "That's two weeks in a row. You don't even believe in God and you still showed up."
Luna didn't slow, didn't look at him, didn't adjust anything about the way she moved through the path. "Yeah," she said, flat and immediate, like the answer had been waiting. "I don't. Like genuinely. Not even a little. It's not my thing."
Her thoughts ran ahead of her words, sharp and already bored with the topic even as it continued.
Oh great. Here we go again. Faith talk. Love that. Super fun.
She watched the way the light broke across the snow ahead of them, deliberately not looking at him.
If God were real, my mom wouldn't still be breathing. That's just math. And if he was feeling generous, I wouldn't be either. Saves everyone the trouble.
The thought didn't land heavy. It never did. It was just something that sat there, part of the internal inventory she carried without checking too often.
So yeah. Hard pass.
Adam let out a small breath through his nose, not quite a laugh, not quite anything else. "You don't believe in anything?" he asked. "Not even like a version of it. Something."
She clicked her tongue once, soft and dismissive. "No. I don't. Not that nonsense. People talking to the ceiling and pretending something's listening back. I'm good."
He stepped around a patch where the snow had drifted slightly onto the path, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat.
"You keep showing up though," he said, easy, like he was nudging a loose thread just to see if it came apart. "At some point that's got to mean something."
"It means I walked into a building and sat down for an hour," she said. "Relax. It's not a personality trait... Besides, if God were real, this world would be a way better place than it is"
"God is real," he went on, undeterred, "thats why he made people to make things better. That's kind of the point."
She snorted, short and sharp. "Then he did a shit job."
"Why?"
"Because I exist."
The words landed flat, clean, with no weight attached to them in her voice, and that was what made the space after them stretch. Luna kept walking, eyes forward, already done with it, while Adam slowed half a step behind her without meaning to, the rhythm of his stride breaking just enough to notice.
He looked at her, searching for something in the delivery that would tell him how to take it, and found nothing that fit. Not a joke. Not a setup. Not an opening. Just a statement that had been placed in the air and left there.
"Okay," he said finally, quieter than before, like he'd decided not to pull on that thread. He let the silence sit for a few steps, then exhaled and shifted sideways into something safer. "So. That dress."
Luna's eyes flicked to him for the first time since they'd left the church, suspicion immediate and unfiltered. "And what about it."
He gestured vaguely at her, the motion loose but not careless, like he'd been thinking about it long enough that it had become a point he needed to address. "You're not even trying to blend in," he said. "Like at all."
"I am blending in," she shot back, the answer coming so fast it almost overlapped his last word. "I wore a dress. People wear dresses to church. That's the whole thing."
Her thoughts stacked behind it, indignant and genuinely confused.
I literally adjusted for the environment. That's what blending in is. You change variables based on context. Church equals dress. I wore a dress. What part of that is hard to understand.
She glanced down at the black fabric as she walked, the layered cut, the lace at the sleeves catching light in small flashes.
It's appropriate. If they don't get it then fuck them.
Adam huffed a laugh under his breath, shaking his head. "I didn't think you had something like that in your closet," he said, the words slipping out before he filtered them.
She stopped.
It wasn't gradual. One step forward and then nothing, the momentum cutting clean as she turned her head to look at him fully, eyes narrowing with a focus that had nothing to do with the conversation they'd been having a second ago.
"And the fuck is that supposed to mean," she asked, and there was no softness in it at all, just a direct line to the point. "You don't like it."
He blinked, caught off guard by the speed of the shift. "No, I didn't say that," he said quickly, hands coming up a little in reflex. "I kinda do. It's just. It's not really something you wear to church."
Her brows pulled together, the expression not defensive so much as genuinely baffled. "Why," she said. "It's a dress. You just said people wear dresses. I wore one. That's consistent."
"Yeah, but there's like a type," he said, searching for words that would explain something he'd never had to explain before. "You could at least throw a coat over it or something. you'd fit in better especially since its winter."
She rolled her eyes, already turning away from him and starting to walk again. "I don't give a rat's ass about what people think of me," she said, the words cutting clean and moving on without waiting for a response. "That's a them problem. And by them I mean everyone."
The implication sat there, unspoken but clear, and Adam caught it anyway, the corner of his mouth twitching as he tried to find his footing again in the conversation.
"Right," he said. "Okay. Got it."
They walked for a few more steps in a quieter rhythm, the path stretching ahead of them in a line of light and shadow, the forest holding its breath around them in that specific way it did when nothing obvious was happening.
Then both of them stopped.
It wasn't coordinated. There was no look, no signal, nothing shared except the same instant of interruption, the same point where something in the background of the world shifted just enough to register.
Luna's body stilled before her mind caught up to why, her head turning slightly as her senses moved ahead of her, scanning. Sight first. The tree line on both sides, the breaks between trunks, the way the light hit the snow in patterns that hadn't changed since she last looked. Nothing there. No movement she could track.
She shifted to sound, filtering out the wind in the branches, the distant creak of wood settling in the cold, the soft compression of snow somewhere deeper in the forest that might have been an animal or might have been nothing.
There was something under it. A disturbance. Not loud. Not careless. The kind of absence where something should be that wasn't making noise on purpose.
Scent came last, and the wind worked against her, carrying whatever was there away from her position instead of toward it. What she caught was fragmentary, thin enough to irritate more than inform. Presence without identity. Close enough to matter. Too careful to be accidental.
Whoever this is isn't stupid,
she thought, the conclusion landing clean and immediate.
Which is more interesting and also more annoying than stupid would be.
Adam's voice cut in beside her, low and certain. "We're being watched," he said. "I can't place it. No scent. Nothing solid."
He rolled one shoulder like he was loosening tension that hadn't quite settled in, then shrugged, casual in a way that didn't quite hide the awareness underneath.
"Whatever," he added. "I've got finals tomorrow. Whoever it is can get my good angle."
Luna snorted, the sound short and unimpressed. "Don't flatter yourself."
He grinned anyway, a quick flash of teeth as he stepped back into motion. "I'm serious," he said, half over his shoulder as he started walking again. "Try to make it quick if they jump me. I've got a study schedule."
She watched him go for a second, the easy way he dismissed it, the way he leaned into it like it was a joke he could carry forward.
"I'm staying," she said, not raising her voice, just stating it.
He didn't stop.
"Cool," he called back. "Make their deaths painless."
She stared at him, incredulous. "Who said I was going to kill anyone," she shot back. "Why did you even assume that."
He laughed under his breath, lifting one hand in a loose wave without turning around. "That doesn't sound like you," he said. "What did you do with Luna."
She scoffed, the sound sharp as she folded her arms for half a second before letting them drop again. "Just go," she muttered, watching him continue down the path until the trees started to swallow him up in segments of movement and shadow.
Then it was just her.