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“I know what she said,” he cuts me off, his thumbs brushing away tears I hadn't realized were falling. “But Alex is too stubborn to die that easily. We need to focus on Talon right now. He's alive, and he needs us.”

Oz is already moving, grabbing the keys and his phone. “I'll get the car. Z, pack a bag for her and yourself. Essentials only. We leave in five minutes.”

The world around me feels distant, like I'm watching a movie of my life rather than living it. I should be moving, helping, doing something—anything—but my body refuses to respond. Alex can't be gone. Not after everything. Not after what we shared.

“Vesper.” Z's voice cuts through the fog. “Look at me. I need you to focus. Can you do that?”

I nod mechanically, though focusing feels impossible with my thoughts splintering in a thousand directions.

“Good. I'm going to pack your things. You stay here, breathe, and be ready to move when I get back.”

He disappears down the hallway, leaving me alone with the terrible silence and the echo of the Coast Guard officer's words. The only survivor located at the scene. My fingers curl into fists, nails biting crescents into my palms, the pain a welcome distraction from the hollow ache spreading through my chest.

This is my fault. I should have been there. I should have found a way to go with them. Maybe if I had been there, Alex would still be alive.

“Don't.” Oz startles me. He's standing in the doorway, car keys dangling from his fingers. “Don't go there. This isn't your fault.”

I want to argue, to scream that it is absolutely my fault, that my obsessive need to find Luca has now potentially cost Alex his life, but the words stick in my throat.

Z returns with a small duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Let's go.”

They lead me down to the car, Z guides me forward when my feet seem to forget how to walk. The night air hits my face, cold and sharp, momentarily clearing the fog from my mind. Reality crashes back with brutal force.

Oz slides behind the wheel while Z helps me into the backseat, climbing in beside me rather than taking the passenger seat. The door closes with a soft thud that feels too final, too much like the closing of a coffin.

“Newport's about an hour away. Traffic should be light this time of night.”

I nod mechanically, though neither of them is looking at me now. Z pulls me against his side. I should find comfort in his warmth, in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my ear, but I feel nothing except a vast, yawning emptiness spreading through my chest.

The city lights blur past my window, smearing into streaks of color as my tears blur everything together. The car is eerily quiet.

I can't breathe properly. Each inhale feels like glass in my lungs, each exhale a struggle not to dissolve into sobs. Z's fingers trace gentle patterns on my arm, but I barely register the sensation. All I can think about is Talon lying in a hospital bed, wounded and alone, and Alex...

Alex, in the cold water. Alex, sinking beneath waves. The ocean doesn't care about promises made in basements.

“He can't be gone,” I mutter more to myself than to the twins. “He promised me.”

Neither responds. What could they possibly say that wouldn't shatter the fragile thread of hope I'm desperately clinging to?

My mind drifts to Talon, his shoulder wound, and the hypothermia. What if we're racing toward another goodbye? What if he's already slipped away while we drive through the night? My quest for Luca might have cost me both of them.

“He's strong,” Z offers. “Talon will pull through.”

I nod mechanically, but the reassurance barely penetrates the fog of despair enveloping me. This is the price of loving these men, this constant, gnawing fear of loss. I thought I'd prepared myself for the worst when I agreed to this life. I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for this sense of being torn apart from the inside.

“We're almost there,” Oz announces. His knuckles are white against the steering wheel, the only visible sign of his distress. “Ten minutes.”

I straighten in my seat, trying to pull myself together. Talon needs me strong, not broken. I can fall apart later, when I'm alone.

The hospital looms ahead. Oz pulls into the emergency entrance.

“I'll find somewhere to park,” Oz orders as Z helps me from the car. “You two go ahead.”

The automatic doors slide open with a pneumatic hiss, blasting us with sterile air and fluorescent light that makes my skin look even more ghostly than I feel. My legs are moving automatically, Z's arm around my waist, the only thing keeping me from collapsing.

“Coast Guard patient,” Z tells the intake nurse, his voice shifting into that authoritative tone that makes people snap to attention. “Talon St. James. Just brought in.”

The nurse's fingers fly across her keyboard. “Are you family?”