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“We won’t let you down, Ani. We’re not going to give up on this, I fucking swear it.”

He leans down and kisses my temple. When I step back, I think I’m holding it together okay. Then I turn and Mae’s standing there. She’s just walked in from her room and she’s still in her pajamas, fox tucked tight under one arm.

“You’re leaving again,” she says, her voice higher than usual.

I crouch in front of her. “I'm not going far.”

Her arms stay at her side and she looks like she might cry.

“I’m staying at the station with Boone,” I explain. “Just for a little while. You can call me anytime. I’ll answer every time. You know that, right?”

She doesn’t speak, but I see her bottom lip tremble.

“Mae, this isn’t forever. It’s just to make sure everyone’s okay. All of us.”

A moment passes. Then she nods, but just barely.

I press a kiss to the top of her head and stand before I can start crying. Boone’s waiting by the door.

I don’t look back when we leave.

I can’t.

Boone doesn’t say much, but he keeps a steady hand on my thigh the entire ride down. When we arrive we walk through the firehouse, past the trucks, past the lockers, past the kitchen where someone’s left a box of cereal open on the counter. He leads me to a room tucked in the back. The walls are bare. The floor is cement but it’s clean. The bed is a twin with an army green blanket on top of white sheet. There’s a lock on the door.

It isn’t home.

But it’s safe.

So, I guess it’s home for now.

Chapter 25

Boone

Icheck in with Jonah and Finn over the radio every hour on the hour. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing new to report. We keep the rhythm and it takes the edge off.

They’re both working to fix this. Jonah is reaching out to old contacts, flipping stones we haven't touched in years. Finn is taking care of Mae and brainstorming other ideas. Between the two of them, we’ll get somewhere.

But not fast enough.

Ani hasn’t moved in the last ten minutes. She’s perched on the edge of the bed with her hands in her lap and her shoulders pulled tight. She hasn’t spoken since we arrived. She hasn’t eaten much either.

She hasn’t cried since we came up with this plan. She packed her bag, said goodbye, and settled here without a single tear. I don’t really know how to handle tears, but this silence she’s sunk into now—that’s worse.

It’s like something in her switched off.

I don’t blame her. Every time she tries to move forward, another hit knocks her down. And they just keep coming. She’s strong, but there’s only so much one person can take before they start to fray at the edges.

I pull up the camera feeds again. One outside. One in the hallway. One fixed on the empty lot across the street. Nothing. We’re locked down tight. But that doesn’t stop me from checking it again anyway.

I glance back at her. She still hasn’t moved.

I’m too scared that the next blow will be the one that truly breaks her. I approach her carefully, and I crouch in front of her, close enough for her to hear me. My hands rest on her knees.

“You’ve gotta get out of your head, sweetheart,” I say. “Think about something else. Anything else.”

Her eyes lift to mine, and she opens her mouth. And what comes out next changes everything.