Chapter Seventeen: Roadside Sunlight
They had talked about the night before.
In full—but still not enough for Katherine.
The tension still clung to Katherine's skin like a second layer, raw and unfinished. She didn't know how to explain the way it made her feel—confused, turned on, terrified, and something else she couldn't name. The kind of feeling that made her want to bolt and crawl into their arms all at once.
Rosalie must've sensed it. Maybe she always did.
That morning, she'd suggested a drive. "Clear air," she said. "Something outside Denali. Outside the shadows, the rituals… the thick emotional heat that's been swallowing us whole."
Katherine hadn't said no.
She needed the space.
She just wasn't sure what for.
"Somewhere with shitty coffee and weird gas station snacks?" Katherine had said.
Kate grinned. "Now that sounds like a vacation."
They took Rosalie's car—sleek, black, too expensive for the dusty roads they veered off onto, but she drove like she didn't care about gravel or mud or the bugs that splattered the windshield. Katherine sat in the front passenger seat, her boots on the dash, sunglasses perched low on her nose.
Kate lounged in the back, one leg crossed over the other, humming along to the radio. Something old-school and slow played. It made Katherine's chest ache in a warm, unfamiliar way.
It felt normal.
No growling. No tears. No black eyes.
Just the three of them and an open road.
They stopped at a roadside diner with creaky floors and a neon sign that buzzed louder than the kitchen. Katherine ordered greasy fries and the worst coffee imaginable with a kind of reverence. Rosalie and Kate didn't eat, but they pretended to share a milkshake—mostly to not draw attention. Which they did anyway. God, did they.
The waitress tripped over herself twice just trying to refill Kate's cup.
Katherine noticed. Her eyes sparkled with amusement.
"Careful," she whispered, leaning across the booth, her voice low and warm in Kate's ear. "I think she wants to crawl into your lap and stay there."
Kate didn't even blink. She took a slow sip of her milkshake, her eyes on Katherine the entire time. "Too bad my lap already has a favorite occupant."
Katherine raised a brow, lips curling into a smirk. "Oh yeah? Anyone I know?"
Before Kate could answer, Rosalie—who had been quietly watching the whole exchange—tilted her head and gave Katherine a look. "Do you really want me to answer that?"
Katherine flushed—an honest-to-god flush—and quickly took a long sip of her terrible coffee, trying to hide behind the mug.
Kate chuckled. "Admit it. You do like us."
Katherine muttered into her cup. "Don't get used to it."
"Too late," Rosalie murmured.
But the flirting came a bit more easily now. The fear wasn't gone—but it had dulled. Blurred into something manageable. Something that didn't demand a reaction every second of the day. She could breathe around them now. Smile. Touch without flinching.
They drove again after that, taking back roads with no real destination.
Katherine leaned her head against the window and hummed along to the music, the motion of the car lulling her into something near peace.
At a scenic overlook, they pulled over.
The view was vast—rolling hills and a stretch of forest that looked like it could swallow the horizon whole. Katherine stood at the edge, wind teasing her hair, arms folded lightly as she stared into the distance.
Rosalie came up beside her, not touching her, just close.
"You look lighter," she said quietly.
Katherine exhaled through her nose. "I feel… like I'm not drowning."
Kate's voice came from behind them, warm and amused. "We'll count that as progress."
Katherine turned slightly, her smile more genuine than it had been in a while. "I still think you're both a little terrifying."
"You love that about us," Kate said.
Katherine rolled her eyes, but didn't deny it.
Rosalie finally touched her—just a hand brushing her lower back. "You're letting us in."
Katherine nodded slowly. "Still not ready for fangs."
"No one's asking for them today," Rosalie promised.
Katherine looked between them—her beautiful, dangerous, maddening vampires—and felt something settle deep in her chest. Not certainty. Not yet. But something close.
She took Rosalie's hand. Reached back for Kate's.
And for that moment, standing on a mountain ridge with the wind in her hair and both of them at her sides, Katherine Pierce didn't feel haunted or hunted.
She felt held.