I didn’t call her on it. Didn’t tell her that “I think so” was what people said when they were still sorting through the wreckage. When their brain was stacking the facts in neat little piles because if they didn’t, the emotional reality would hit all at once and knock the air out of them.
I’d been there.
Her eyes flicked to the gauze on my arm. “You should’ve let them take you to a bed.”
I snorted under my breath. “Not happening.”
She studied me for a long moment, like she was filing the answer away for later. “Why?”
Because if I’d let them move me, I’d have had to step away from you.
Because the image of you trapped behind that door won’t stop replaying, and I need to know you’re still breathing.
None of that came out.
“Because I’m fine.”
Her mouth twitched. “Liar.”
That almost cracked something in my chest. Almost.
The silence that followed was heavier than the last one, pressing in on all sides. I stared at the floor, at the scuffed linoleum and the faint smear of soot my partly melted boot had left behind, and tried not to let my mind go back to the marina.
Tried and failed.
I still felt the heat of flames on my skin, still smelled the gasoline underneath the burning fiberglass. “Madden.”
She shifted slightly, the blanket rustling. “Yeah?”
I looked up at her, really looked, and the breath caught in my chest in a way I didn’t have language for yet. She wasn’t crying. Wasn’t shaking. She was watching me with that sharp, assessing focus she used when she was thinking something through.
“I need you to understand something,” I said.
Her brow furrowed. “Okay.”
“This wasn’t random.” I kept my voice level, even as something dark and furious curled tighter in my gut. “Whoever did this didn’t just get lucky. They came prepared. They knew the boat, the layout, and how long it would take for heat to build.”
She absorbed that without flinching.
“They chained the door because they wanted time. They wanted smoke. Confusion. They wanted you trapped long enough for…”
Her fingers curled into the sheet as I trailed off. “For me not to get out.”
“Yes.”
The truth settled between us, heavy and unmovable.
She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in the oxygen. I watched her throat move as she swallowed, watched the way her jaw set like she was bracing against something internal.
“Madden, they could try again.”
I needed her to hear that. To understand it.
Her eyes opened, and she shoved the canula off, as if she wanted to be extra damned sure I heard her reply. “I can’t stop.”
There it was.
Not bravado. Not defiance.
