My phone buzzed again. This time, I glanced at the screen.
Matthew:Check in or Marcus sends the Coast Guard.
I slipped it back into my pocket.
Alex raised an eyebrow. "You'd rather be there, wouldn't you?"
"Where?"
"Home. Working." His voice was gentle. It didn't sound judgmental. "I've seen that look before. Like you'd rather be anywhere but sitting still."
I watched him for a beat too long. I didn't reach out. I stayed where I was, hands still, trying not to want anything more.
"It's not that. It's just—" I struggled to articulate the restlessness that had dogged me since helping Marcus take down a killer almost a year ago. "I'm not good at this. Stopping."
"Most people who run toward danger aren't."
"Is that what you think I do?"
"Isn't it?" His head tilted slightly. "There's a difference between facing danger because you have to and seeking it because it's—" he paused, searching for the right word, "—familiar."
Something in his assessment unsettled me. It was too close to what Marcus had shouted the night before they put me on the plane. "You're not invincible just because you're convinced you should be."
"That sounds like something a history teacher would say."
"Occupational hazard. We see patterns." Alex smiled, but his eyes remained serious. "People repeating themselves across centuries."
"And what pattern am I?" I leaned forward, suddenly curious.
He didn't hesitate. "The guardian archetype. You're part of the long tradition of people who place themselves between others and harm, even at personal cost. History's full of them."
Alex tapped his fingers against his mug. "The complicated part is figuring out what they're really protecting."
A boat engine revved somewhere in the marina. A crew shouted something in French, and someone laughed. It was too normal. We sat in a painting of a peaceful morning, pretending we hadn't stepped into a new understanding.
Alex leaned partway across the table. "You know, it's weird. I've always thought I hated cops. Or at least distrusted them. My wife was worse than me, but here I am, eating breakfast with one, and I don't—"
He stopped and scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know what I'm doing."
I swallowed the first answer that came to mind—Neither do I.
My brain dug up a better response. "You're eating mango in paradise. That's not the worst decision."
Alex chuckled. "Guess not."
Suddenly, the birds stopped. Just—stopped. One second, they were calling overhead, and the next, the whole canopy fell quiet like someone hit mute on the world.
Even the sea seemed to hush.
Alex and I looked at each other. "Did you hear—"
At that moment, the world tilted and cracked open.
A low, concussive boom—not sharp like thunder, but deep and dirty, a sound that rips through your bones before your brain catches up. The floor of the restaurant jumped beneath my feet.
Glassware rattled, and birds shot into the air in a frenzy of wings. A second later came the change in pressure, a ripple in the air that made the hair on my arms stand straight up.
Every conversation died. Forks dropped. Chairs scraped. The silence that followed was worse than the sound—a hollow, breathless pause like the whole island had gone still, waiting to see what came next.
