“Dr. Hale,” the first woman says. “I’m the doc. This is Tamsin, a therapist if you’d like to talk. We’re around when you want us. Not before. Okay?”
I nod. “I appreciate that. Right now—I think I just need some water and a minute.”
“Done.” Dr. Hale slides a blister pack onto the nightstand. “For the headache. It’s gentle stuff. No dyes.” She gestures to the back of her own neck. “Tender?”
“Like a hornet with a grudge,” I say.
“I gave you a small shot,” she answers, neutral. “We can talk about the why when your eyes stop trying to murder you. I can tell they’re bothering you.”
I look at Conrad. I know he has something to do with that ‘small shot.’ He doesn’t flinch from the question in my gaze, though. Fine. We’ll have that conversation when the room isn’t full of witnesses and people who know what a felony looks like on paper.
“Later,” I agree.
Tamsin’s voice is warm and level. “You don’t owe anyone in this house any version of your story you don’t want to tell. You also don’t have to pretend you’re fine in order for us to leave the room.”
I believe her. I don’t know why. I nod again, the motion small, becauseholy fuck,my head hurts. “Thank you.”
They vanish as gently as they appeared.
The men don’t move. It should feel like a siege. Instead, it feels like a wall I can lean on without falling through.
I test my voice again. “How long have I been out?”
“Six hours,” Atticus says.
“Long enough to alarm us, but not long enough to worry the doctor,” Storm adds.
“Con wouldn’t let go,” Maverick says lightly. His eyes don’t leave my face.
I glance down. Conrad’s hand rests on the blanket near my hip, not touching. I put my hand on top of his. His fingers flex, then still. The muscle in his jaw stops chewing whatever it was about to swallow.
“Okay,” I say, and the word is bigger than it sounds. “Here’s what I need.”
Four heads lift like I rang a bell.
“I need one of you in the room,” I say. “Not all of you at once. Rotate. I need to take a shower without anyone hovering, but I need someone outside the door. I need the door to lock and for one of you to have a key. I need my phone if I still have one, or a new one if I don’t. I need a slice of toast. I need…” My throat gets stupidly tight. I push through it. “I need you not to treat me like glass. I’m tired of losing pieces of myself to other people’s hands.”
Storm nods once, solemn as a contract, then leans forward and presses his mouth against mine. Hard. When he’s finished, I know I’m not glass. “Done.”
Maverick is already half out of his chair. “Toast,” he says. “World-class. Toast is my domain.” He points to Zeus. “You—guard.”
Zeus wags, very professional.
Atticus taps something on his tablet. “I’ll have a phone on your nightstand in two minutes, with our numbers programmed in already. No GPS, no Cloud, no surprises. And a tablet. But no internet. Not yet.”
Conrad doesn’t move. He just looks at me like I’m the only thing on a map that’s true. “The door locks,” he says. “I’ll be outside while you shower.”
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it in all the ways. “We’ll talk about the boat after.”
I start to swing my feet to the floor. The room tilts, corrects. Conrad is there but not grabbing—just a bracket at my elbow until I take the weight myself. The carpet is soft and new andnothing like the cold teeth of a steel deck. The ache in my neck complains when I turn my head, so I don’t. I make the first steps small and deliberate. Zeus would come with me if I let him; I scratch his head and tell him he has to watch the bed. He gives me a look that says he disagrees with my management style but obeys anyway.
At the bathroom door, I stop and look back at all of them—their chairs, their tablets, their unblinking attention. “You can blink,” I say.
“Later,” Maverick calls from the kitchen.
Conrad’s hand ghosts the doorframe by my head, not touching me, claiming the space like a promise. “I’ll be right here.”
“I know,” I say again. I close the door. The lock snicks, clean and deliberate.
