I don’t move. She asked me not to hover, and I’m trying—God knows I’m trying—but every instinct in me is pacing like a caged animal.
When she finally appears, hair damp, one of my shirts hanging off her shoulder, she looks smaller than she did at the cabin door that first night. Exhausted. Pale. But here.
Our eyes meet, and something in my lungs unlocks.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Tired,” she says softly. “My nerves still feel… buzzy.”
I nod and hold out a hand.
She takes it.
We don’t talk while I guide her to the couch. She sits, curling her legs under her like she’s trying to make herself small, then immediately leans into my side. I wrap an arm around her shoulders, grounding her, grounding myself.
For a long time, we just breathe.
The storm presses against the windows. Maisie curls at our feet, chin resting over Sadie’s toes like she’s volunteering for guard duty.
Sadie exhales slowly. “Is Shay okay?”
“She’s fine,” I tell her. “Shaken. Henry won’t let her out of his sight. FBI’s got her statement.”
“And Clarissa?”
My jaw ticks. “Under lock and key. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Sadie swallows audibly.
I wait. I know there’s more. She’s holding herself too carefully, like she’s balancing a weight she hasn’t put down yet.
“What else?” I ask gently.
She hesitates. “I keep replaying it. The barn. The cabin. Her face. The way she looked at me like she already owned whatever future she thought I had left.”
I pull her closer. “She doesn’t own anything now.”
Sadie presses her cheek into my shirt. “I thought I’d be braver when it happened. I thought that if I ever faced her again, I’d say the right thing, or stand the right way, or not feel like the ground was disappearing.”
“You stood,” I say simply. “You fought. Kept breathing even when it hurt. You were so fucking strong, Dove.”
She closes her eyes. “Wyatt… I almost killed her.”
The words scrape out of her like they hurt.
My hand stills on her shoulder. “You didn’t.”
“But I wanted to,” she whispers. “Just for a second. I saw the gun in my hand, and all I could think was that she didn’t deserve to walk away after what she did. To my dad. To Harry’s cover. To me. To… everyone.”
“You’re human,” I murmur.
Sadie shakes her head. “I don’t want hatred to live in me. I’ve had enough fear taking up space there. I don’t want her to own anything in me anymore.”
I tilt her chin so she’s looking up at me. “She doesn’t. She never will again.”
Her breath trembles out. She looks so damn young and so damn strong at the same time it squeezes something deep in my chest.
“I’m scared of sleeping,” she admits. “Every time I blink, I see her hand reaching for me.”
