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“I don’t,” he replied. “You could take out a loan, borrow from Noah or Judy and Marsh, probably even get an advance from work, or do a payment plan with the hospital. A long-term car loan. You could do that, and you’d eventually be able to pay it all back.

But I can help, and I want to.” He sighed.

“And you don’t have to accept it, if you really don’t want to. ”

But he sounded hurt. Like the very idea that I didn’t want to let him help me bothered him. “I just… I already owe you so much.”

“It’s not a gift if you have to repay it, baby.”

I looked away from him. “I don’t want to always have to rely on you,” I mumbled.

“Why?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell what the tone was in his voice was. Disappointment, maybe? But it wasn’t just that. Confusion? Frustration? Sadness?

I frowned. “What do you mean, why ?”

“Why don’t you want to rely on me?”

Shit . When he put it that way, it actually did sound pretty bad. You were supposed to rely on people you loved. “I—it’s not that I don’t want to rely on you,” I half-stammered. “I just—I don’t want to only take from you. Over and over again.”

“Oh, baby, you don’t,” he said softly, his voice gentler than it had been.

“Yes, I do,” I argued. “All I’ve ever done is take from you?—”

“And helped me,” he interrupted.

I rolled my eyes. “I helped you move a few things and hold some boards in place,” I retorted. “I haven’t?—”

“Saved my life?” It was apparently his turn to interrupt me.

“I mean?—”

“Reminded me that it’s important to let yourself love someone?”

I just gaped at him.

“Kept me accountable when I was going to make really stupid decisions?”

I frowned. “What stupid decisions?” I asked.

His dark eyebrows rose. “The foxglove?”

I had completely forgotten about that. “Okay, that would have been pretty bad,” I admitted.

“See?” He offered me a weak smile. “You’ve done plenty.”

“I also almost got you killed,” I reminded him glumly.

“But you didn’t,” he murmured. “We both came out of it okay.”

I let out a strangled sound that was part laugh, part sob.

It turned to all sobs when Elliot stood and carefully climbed up to sit on the hospital bed and wrap me in his arms.

I was tired—no, not tired, exhausted . That kind of bone-deep exhaustion that sucks all energy out of you and leaves you completely drained, all walls down, all self-control obliterated.

With Noah safe, I just wanted to go home.

To pick up the pieces of the life that may or may not be waiting for me.

To collapse in the bed I shared with Elliot and just let him hold me together.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. “I’ve always got you.”

I was started awake from the nap I’d fallen into on Elliot’s chest by the door slamming open and Hart yelling “Those fucking fuckers!”

I gasped, sitting up sharply, then sucked in a second breath at the pain in my side.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Val,” Elliot snapped. “Have a little goddamn courtesy.”

I let out a long breath, easing the pain with the exhalation. “What happened?” I asked the clearly furious elf. He’d been released yesterday, and had—much to Taavi’s annoyance—immediately gone back to work. The smaller shifter had insisted on staying, although I hadn’t yet seen him today.

Hart stared at me for a moment, his expression conflicted.

“Fuck’s sake, Val, you came charging in here like a bat out of hell, and now you’re not sure if you want to tell us why? What the fuck?”

Hart’s ears turned a bright magenta.

“It’s fucking… sensitive , okay, dickhead?”

“Is Noah okay?” I asked immediately.

“Yeah, he’s fine. Holed up with the lawyers,” Hart replied immediately.

I thought for a minute while Hart stewed. “Then what did my father do this time?” I asked.

They both stared at me.

I sighed. “I don’t know what else could possibly be sensitive unless it involved either Noah or my father, and if it’s not Noah…” I let the sentence trail off.

Hart ran an agitated hand over his braid. “He—he’s dead,” he said, finally.

“Jesus, Val,” Elliot hissed.

“Suicide?” I asked, and they both looked at me again, this time with vaguely horrified expressions. I sighed. “Look, I didn’t love him. I didn’t even like him. He made my life a living hell, killed my mother, and then tried to kill both Elliot and me. I’m not upset he’s gone.”

The color flushed from Hart’s ears to his cheekbones. “I mean, when you put it that way…” he grumbled.

“Was it suicide?” I asked again.

Hart sighed. “It was supposed to look like it, I think,” he replied, color darkening further. I immediately understood that it was a sensitive topic not because of me, but because of Elliot . Whose father had been murdered, and that murder made to look like a suicide by hanging.

I met Hart’s worried lavender gaze, and he gave a small nod. He’d expected me to be alone, although why, I wasn’t sure, since I didn’t know where else Elliot would go. Maybe he thought Elliot would be with Noah at Humbolt’s office, or back in the hotel room with the cat?

Beside me, I felt Elliot stiffen slightly when he realized what had happened and why it was Hart hadn’t wanted to tell us anything. “Jesus, Val,” he muttered, skin darkening. “Just fucking say it.”

I pressed one hand to his thigh, and he covered it with his own, fingers tightening around mine.

Hart sighed. “Fine. They found him… hanging in his cell from a strip of bed sheet.”

“Tied with a knot he couldn’t possibly have tied?” I guessed.

“Got it in one.” He sighed again. “God, I miss working with you, Mays.”

It felt wildly inappropriate to smile, so I quashed it. “I miss working with you, too,” I told him. “You’ll just have to move back to Shawano.”

Hart barked out a laugh. “Fuck no. Not that I don’t love you guys, but no. I cannot deal with Shawano fucking Wisconsin for more than two weeks a year.”

Elliot mustered enough good humor to flip him off, earning the flash of a smile from Hart before the elf’s face fell serious again.

“Seriously, though, Mays. I’m sorry about your father.”

I stared at him. “I’m not,” I retorted. “Now I don’t have to go through the hell of a trial.”

Elliot’s hand gently squeezed my thigh.

Hart’s expression was grim. “As my friend, I’m glad for that,” he said seriously. “But it means that someone inside Augusta County Jail killed him or let him be killed. And that’s a problem.”

“Isn’t that your job to deal with? As a fed?” Elliot asked, although his hand was still tight on my thigh. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to reassure me or himself.

Hart’s jaw set. “Raj is already all over that like shit on shingles,” he said, his voice hard. “But I still have questions, and Seth might be able to help me find the answers.”