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Tension mounts and turns the air thick. I have to do something to lighten this mood. “How about I make dinner and we have a nice sit down. Do we need to get Tase over here, too?”

Whatever feelings she has, the three of us are connected, and I know it for sure when tears flood her eyes again. I track a single one winding down her cheek.

“No, Tase has plans tonight.” There’s more she wants to say but she swallows it down.

“I’m starving,” Soren barks out. “We eat, she talks. That’s how this is going to go.”

He’s just as worried as I am and he wasn’t here to see Gilli when she first got home. Ashen, strained, terrified. Whether the threat was in her head or not, it deeply affected her.

I whip up a quick pasta salad and set it in the middle of the table like Susie Fucking Homemaker.

My appetite is gone.

Soren is the only one who wolfs down his meal while we both wait for her to settle.

She flutters, her eyes haunted and her tawny skin pale. “How much did you overhear?” she asks Soren finally.

He swallows, flicking his gaze up to hers, although he’s still crouched over his plate like a caveman. It’s how he processes things. He goes into himself, and although he listens to everything, it takes him a minute to internalize it before he speaks.

“Just start at the beginning and go from there,” he urges.

So she does.

There’s no room for us to be awkward together. Not once she starts her story About the cam girl work and the threat she received, the money in her account. How she tried to block the bastard, only for his men to break into her apartment in the middle of the night. How she came here to the cabin thinking it would be her chance to hide out while she puzzles out how to survive.

“I never wanted to involve any of you,” she insists. “I didn’t know anyone would be here at the cabin.”

“Well, we are.”

“Soren.” I shoot him a warning look.

“He’s right, you are.” She bobs her head. “And I’ve been dancing around it because I’m stupid and I should have gone to the police in Baltimore when I first had the chance.”

“But you tried to call. Using my cell phone,” Soren clarifies for my benefit.

Her hands rise and fall like torn bird wings. “I did, and the local sheriff here blew me off. Pretty sure he wasabout to tell me I was in hysterics but then chose to hang up.”

“Useless motherfuckers,” I mutter.

Soren grabs another helping of salad.

Some people deal with stress by shutting down and blocking out the rest of the world. Isolation. That’s where I go when I need comfort. It’s so hard to let people in when the risk of them seeing the real you is so high.

Easier, I’ve always found, to retreat.

Soren only goes quiet while he processes. Otherwise he’s the kind to blaze in with his sword drawn and cut down the problem before it becomes a problem.

We’re too late for that now.

He eyes Gilli over his plate. “The police aren’t going to help you unless they think it’s a real threat and you give them evidence. You said someone followed you today?”

She dips her chin, her hands hidden on her lap. “I thought so, but when I turned around, there was no one. Only tourists.”

“Could you be imagining things?”

“Okay, Mr. Insensitive.” She automatically shifts into defense mode.

“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be a dick this time.” They scowl at each other. “I’m just trying to understand the situation.”