Ford
Lo’s shaking. Whole body wound up, bracing for a hit.
The air in the garden goes sour. Beck swears low, Hayes’s jaw ticks hard. I just keep hold of Lo’s hand. She tries to pull it free, but I don’t let her.
It’s time she learned to stop running.
Even if we have to force the lesson on her.
“Inside,” I tell her.
She snaps her head up, eyes sharp. “No. I?—”
“Lo.”
Her shoulders drop. The fight’s too heavy to carry. That scares me worse than her fire ever could.
We pack it up fast. Beck’s scanning the tree line, eyes lit with a violence I recognize. Hayes is stuffing food back in the basket without looking at it. I put out the fire in the portable stove and make a mental note to come out and break down the rest. But we have to get her inside. Now.
I guide her up the cobblestone steps toward the house. She stumbles, and I’m there, catching her against me. She doesn’t push me away, though. She doesn’t let that fierce, independent ferocity guide the moment.
That’s how I know she’s breaking under the pressure.
Inside, it’s cooler. Safe enough, at least. I steer her to the couch while Beck pulls the curtains so no one can look in. She curls up small, arms locked tight around herself. Beck takes the chair across her, fists tight. Hayes paces, too restless to sit.
He always paces when he’s restless.
I kneel in front of her. I’ve always been steadier on my knees than standing when things get bad, anyway.
“You’re safe here with us,” I say. “I hope you realize that.”
She laughs, but it’s sharp, broken glass in her throat. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I hold her gaze. “You’re safe while you’re with us. I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it.”
“He’s right,” Beck says.
The pitter-patter of Hayes’s steps backdrops the conversation.
Her mouth trembles; she wants to argue. Then her eyes go wet. “It’s just all so much?—”
Her teeth sink into her lip as if she can chew the words back. I see through it, though. All of it.
The fight. The fear.
The relentless exhaustion, and not just from her five-day-long heat.
I reach up, laying my palm over her knee. “You know we’re here for you.”
Her breath hitches. Her arms tighten around her ribs; she's holding herself together by force. “If I let go, I’ll fall apart.”
“Then fall,” I insist. “I’ll catch you.”
“We all will,” Hayes adds.
She shakes her head, curls tumbling loose. “You can’t promise that.”
“Already did,” I say as I reach up and trace my thumb along the clothed outline of her breast.
