“Lucy.”
I don’t know who says it.I don’t care.I stumble further into the living room, my breath coming too fast, too sharp.
“Marlaina?”No answer.
“Quinn?”My voice breaks.
Nothing.
Saged moves past me, checking rooms, calling his sister’s name.Men fill the house behind us, spreading out, searching, voices low and urgent.
But I can’t hear them.I can’t hear anything except the sound of my own heart shattering.
“She was here,” I whisper, my voice shaking.“She was here, she had Quinn—she was supposed to?—”
My knees give out.The world tilts.And then Tucker is there.Catching me before I hit the floor.
“I’ve got you,” he says, his voice rough and furious and trying so hard to stay steady.
But I’m already breaking.“She’s gone,” I sob.“He took her—he took them—” “No.”I clutch at his shirt, shaking.“No, no, no—please?—”
“Lucy, look at me.”
I can’t.I can’t see anything through the tears.
“Look at me.”
His hands come to my face, forcing me gently but firmly to focus.His eyes are dark.Burning.Terrifying.But not at me.
Never at me.
“They’re alive,” he states, every word a promise.“Do you hear me?”
I shake my head, choking on my own breath.“I can’t?—”
“They’re alive,” he repeats.“And we’re going to find them.”
The certainty in his voice cuts through the panic just enough to reach me.Just enough to hold onto.“You don’t know that,” I whisper.
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because I’m not letting anything else be true.”
The words hit like steel.Unyielding.Absolute.
Behind him, I hear Chux giving orders.Riot on the phone.
Saged tearing through the house like a man on the edge of losing everything.
And Tucker—Tucker holds me together in the middle of it.
“I’ve got you,” he says again, pulling me against him as I fall apart.
And this time, even through the terror, through the grief, through the unbearable fear clawing its way up my throat—I believe him.
Because I have to.
