Then my phone rings.
The sound cuts through the quiet like a knife.
Ingrid tenses beneath me.
I pull back, grab the phone from my pocket.
Fenrir.
Fuck.
"Yeah?"
"They're moving. Tonight. Intel just came in—shipment's happening now, not Thursday."
My blood runs cold. "Where?"
"Warehouse off the interstate, just like we thought. We roll in thirty minutes. Get to the staging point."
"On my way."
I hang up.
Ingrid's already sitting up, her face pale in the dim light. "It's happening," she says. "Isn't it?"
"Yeah. They're moving the kids tonight."
"So, you have to go."
"I have to go."
She nods slowly.
I can see the fear in her eyes, the way her hands are shaking.
But she doesn't ask me to stay.
Doesn't beg or cry or make this harder than it already is.
She just looks at me with those green eyes and says, "Come back to me."
"I will."
"Promise me."
I take her face in my hands, kiss her hard. "I promise."
Then I'm moving—grabbing my cut, checking my piece, shoving extra clips into my pockets.
Ingrid watches from the bed, arms wrapped around her knees.
"Will you stay here?" I ask. "Until I get back?"
"Where else would I go?"
"I don't know. Home. Astrid's."
"This is home." She says it quietly, like she's just realizing it herself. "Wherever you are. That's home now."
