“She’s going to be the one he goes for,” I say finally, back still turned to them. “If he suspects anything…if he senses a shift…she’s the first target.”
Rian tenses across the booth. “Then we shield her,” he says. “At all costs.”
“Even if it means?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Kellan cuts me off sharply, whipping his head around.
He holds my gaze until I look away. I don’t have to finish it. He knows what I was going to say. They both do. I can still hear it in my head even though I didn’t say it aloud.
Even if it means losing one of us.
“We’re doing this,” Kellan says. But it’s quiet. More to himself than to us. His eyes are on the table, on the little figurines. His fingers flick one, and it skitters across the table, landing with a softplopin the pleather booth seat.
“Not just doing it,” I say, staring at them both. I look down at the map. At the place where it will happen. The old man’s final meal. “Finishing it.”
35
CAROLINE
It’s been so longsince I’ve been back in Washington that it doesn’t feel real. The roads are familiar, but wrong somehow—like someone laid a memory over a stranger’s city. The sky is the same dull silver I remember, heavy with unspilled rain, but the air smells different. Like possibility. Like endings.
It feels like another life. Or maybe several stacked on top of each other, all bleeding through the cracks.
I’ve been reborn too many times in this lifetime. I was reborn the night I stepped into that underground club, both the moment they touched me and the moment I saw blood. I was reborn when I got pregnant, and again when I moved to Washington, hiding in plain sight with Alaina like the world hadn’t ended behind me.
And then I was taken. And everything split again.
Now I’m back, somehow, but I don’t feel like the same woman who left. Sitting in Alaina’s driveway, still humming with the buzz of the private flight, I grip the steering wheel and stare at the quiet house like it might bite.
The boys are finally asleep in the back seat, their small mouths parted, cheeks pink from excitement. During the flight, they smashed their faces to the windows, pointing at clouds and screaming about what the world looked like from above. Every mountain was a monster. Every lake was a magic pool. They asked if we were flying to the moon. No, just Washington, I said.
Now, watching them curled up in their car seats, soft and oblivious, I feel hollow. Not empty. Just…scraped out. Like something inside me keeps getting scooped away with every life I live. I don’t know how many lives I have left in me.
The porch light flicks on, and Alaina steps outside before I’m ready. I flinch like she’s a gunshot. A siren. A scream.
She moves like she’s been watching from the window, like she knew I was here before I even turned onto the street. Her arms are crossed over her chest, and her mouth is a thin, pale line. She’s barefoot, in worn jeans and a hoodie with a coffee stain on the sleeve, like she’s trying to pretend this is a normal night and I’m just any friend stopping by.
But we both know better.
Behind her, the door opens again. James steps into the porch light with his usual quiet calm, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s not sure if he should come out or give us space. He’s in a gray T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, and his hair sticks up in the back like he was lying on the couch. When his eyes find mine, he gives a small nod—no pressure, no questions. Just presence.
The last time I stood in front of Alaina, I was begging her not to ask questions. And she didn’t, despite her own quiet pleas. And now she’s taking them in. No contracts. No judgment. Just quiet, furious love that runs deeper than blood.
I open the car door slowly and step out. My legs feel stiff, like they’ve forgotten how to move without urgency. I open the back door and unbuckle one of the boys. He stirs, mumbling sleepily, and I press a kiss to his temple before lifting him into my arms. He wraps around me like a sloth, warm and trusting, and I want to fall apart.
I set him gently on the ground, and he leans against my leg while I gather his brother. Same process. Same kiss. Same ache.
The door creaks open again, and soft footsteps pad down the porch steps. Aspen, now six, all long limbs and wild curls, bursts across the lawn in her pajamas, barefoot like her mom.
“Miss Caroline!” she whisper-shouts, flinging herself against my legs.
I laugh, a quiet, strangled sound. “Hey, Aspen, look how big you are!”
“Is the sleepover starting now?” she asks. “Mommy said it’s gonna be like sleepaway camp.”
I smooth a hand over her hair. “Just about. You gonna help your mom with the boys?”
She nods fiercely and immediately grabs one of their tiny hands in hers.
