After He Left Me to Freeze, I Rejected Him as My Mate novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Key

Willa's POV

My father had wanted to drive me to the follow-up appointment himself.

I had told him I was thirty years old, and that I knew the road.

I saw the door from a quarter mile away.

It stood on end in the grass at the top of the rise, black against the sky, with the sun on its edge.

I knew the shape before I knew what it was.

I pulled into the gravel and stopped the engine.

Kellan was sitting on the bumper of a battered truck. He stood up when I opened my door, and then he stayed where he was.

He had lost weight. He wore a work jacket with the sleeves rolled, and he had a burn on his wrist.

Neither of us said hello.

I walked to the door.

Up close it was bigger than I remembered. It had been tall enough to fill my whole vision from the floor.

The handle was cold under my glove, and I took my hand away.

Something small was wired to it. A brass key, turning slowly in the wind.

"Hester didn't tell you I'd be here," I said.

"She didn't tell me anything."

"You left it facing the road."

"I wanted you to know it's out of the building," he said. "I couldn't leave it where it was, and I couldn't melt it. I thought you might want to decide."

I stepped around to the back.

The inside face of the door was bare steel, and I knew exactly where to look.

The scratches were at knee height, in groups of four, long and shallow.

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