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More creaking sounds before footsteps approach, bringing Mrs. Akello to Finn’s side—she leans down to kiss his forehead, I think. “I’m gonna go find your father,” she says before doing just that.

The door closes, and a long exhale brushes the top of my head.

A nose nuzzles my cheek. “I know you’re awake.”

Sighing, I drop the charade, reeling back to take in the face barely an inch from mine.

I don’t want to talk about what I just overheard, and it seems futile to ask how he’s feeling—I know the word fine is more likely to leave his mouth than an honest response—so I study him intently instead.

All things considered, he doesn’t not look fine.

His eyes are bloodshot and a little droopy from the medication they’re pumping him with, but he doesn’t look like he’s on death’s door.

He doesn’t even look like he’s on death’s driveway.

He looks alive and something akin to okay, and he’s smiling that beautiful, lovely smile, and I trace it with my thumb, thanking a god I don’t believe in for its existence.

Finn nips the tip, tutting at the destroyed nail before kissing my bandaged palm, sweet actions that are so at odds with a soft, “Get up.”

I jerk, that pesky, familiar dread returning for a second, suffocating round. “Why?”

“‘Cause if I get up, a silent alarm will go off and my mom will storm in here, and I’ll probably end up needing surgery again.”

“That’s not funny.” I poke the hollowed dip above his collarbone. “Why does anyone need to get up?”

His sleepy expression turns a foreboding kind of soft. “Because I can’t be mad at you when you’re being so sweet and clingy.”

My heart jumps to my throat as that tingling familiar numbness settles in my extremities once more. Careful not to jostle him, I untangle myself from him and slip out of bed. My stomach hits the floor the same second my feet do.

For once, I’m looming over him. I’ve got the technical upper-hand, he’s horizontal and wounded and quite literally beneath me. But when that handsome face turns to stone, I feel about two feet tall.

“Don’t you ever do something like that again, do you hear me?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You put yourself in danger like that again…” he trails off. “You don’t. Okay? You stop that shit or else…” Again, he pauses, his head dropping to the pillow behind it as he huffs. “I can’t think of a consequence right now, but I promise it’ll be really bad.”

My thoughts move like mud, trying to make sense of his words, momentarily getting caught on how different our expressions of mad are. “You’re… you’re mad, right?”

He nods stiffly.

“Because I got you shot.”

“Because you got shot, Lottie. You got shot a little, but you almost got, like, really fucking shot too.”

My frown deepens. I… maybe it’s the painkillers. He’s confused. He doesn’t get it, what happened, not properly.

I repeat, “I got you shot.”

“Better me than you.”

“Don't say that,” I snap, fucking shivering , loathing that he could ever think like that. “It should’ve been me.”

Just as adamant, he retorts, “Don’t say that .”

“It was my fault.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But it was my fault .”

“But I don’t blame you. They wanted Ruin. They were always gonna come for him.”

But I taunted them, I went over there, I shoved a gun in their faces first and Finn doesn’t know that yet so I tell him, and still, he shakes his head. “They still would’ve come.”

“Ricky was there for me.”

“His actions are not your responsibility.”

“If he hadn't been there—”

“It wasn’t his gun. You can if all day long, baby. There isn’t a single scenario that you could come up with that would convince me you’re the bad guy here.”

I blink. My eyes feel wet again, and I’m not sure how that’s possible, not when I already let loose my body weight in tears. “You got hurt.”

Finn hums, not disagreeing for once. Like he did a few hours ago—yesterday? I have no idea—he pats the bed. “Kiss it better.”

“Finn.”

“Yes, my love?”

My breath hitches.

Don’t call me that teeters on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t dare let it fall. He’s delirious, loopy from blood loss and a battery of medication—he’s reading my fucking mind, he knows exactly what I’m thinking, he’s opening his mouth to press the matter, but I beat him too.

“Please,” I croak. “I don’t wanna talk about that right now.”

Lips snapping shut, they form a pout that honest to God makes my world spin. “Fine,” he relents so easily, and I could drop my knees and weep with the relief of it. “But the other thing is a non-negotiable.”

“What other thing?” I start to ask only for the question to be preemptively answered.

Straining himself way more than I prefer, he reaches for me and guides me down to the edge of the bed. One hand holding mine, the other pinches my chin and drags me down.

The first brush of his lips against mine makes me want to sob. I think I do sob a little—some kind of a ragged noise leaves me, and Finn shushes it quickly, tenderly, kissing me harder and tracing the seam of my mouth with his tongue.

“No,” I murmur half-heartedly as if I’m not reciprocating, as if I’m not mimicking him, our tongues tangling briefly before I reel back enough to catch his eyes with mine. “Finn—”

“A little more. Please.” He drags his mouth over mine, his smile over my frown. “I feel so much better already.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“I’m wounded, baby.”

I flinch at the needless reminder. Really pulling back now, my gaze drops to the surgical bandage covering the left side of his chest. Scarcely able to breathe at the sight of it, I trace the edges with my thumb, dreading ever seeing what carnage might lie beneath—gasping at the memory of what I already saw.

Fingers circle my wrist and raise it, bringing mine to soft lips. Finn kisses the heel of my hand, the curve of my thumb, each of my knuckles, before murmuring against my palm, “I’m good, Lot. Not going anywhere, okay?”

“No,” I echo shakily—agree, demand . “No, you’re not.”

And fuck, neither am I.