"For us."
"For you." I find her hand in the dim light of the cabin. Her skin is cold. I squeeze it. "I'd do it again. Every time."
She’s quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is steadier. "I was so scared. Sitting in that room, listening to the gunfire, not knowing if you were—" She stops, swallowing hard. "I've never been so scared in my life."
"I know," I whisper. "But you stayed. You kept Rosie calm. You did exactly what you needed to do."
"I wanted to help. I wanted to do something?—"
"You did. You kept them safe. That was the mission. You were the only reason I could focus on the door."
From across the cabin, a small voice pipes up.
"Jon?"
Rosie is curled in Sera's lap, her eyes wide as she fights off sleep. She's looking at our joined hands.
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Are you Aunt Evie's boyfriend?"
The question is a grenade. Sera makes a sound that is half-laugh, half-sob. Angel’s shoulders shake in the pilot’s seat. Evie goes completely still.
"Rosie—" she starts.
"Because Mommy says when boys hold your hand and look at you all worried like that, it means they like you," Rosie says with the terrifyingly simple logic of a seven-year-old. "And you keep looking at her. Like, all the time."
My hand tightens on Evie's. The armor I’ve worn for years—the jokes, the distance, the cynicism—it isn't just cracked. It's gone.
"Yeah, sweetheart," I say, my voice steady. "I'm Aunt Evie's boyfriend."
Something cracks open in my chest. It isn't pain. It’s light.
Evie turns to look at me. In the shadows of the helicopter, her face is all softness and tear tracks.
"Is that okay?" I ask her, my voice low. "I should have asked first. I just?—"
"It's okay," she whispers. She leans her head on my shoulder. "It's more than okay."
Rosie nods, satisfied, and closes her eyes.
The helicopter carries us west, toward the coast, toward the sanctuary of the compound.
Toward home.
SEVENTEEN
Resolution
RIOT
The California coastappears through the helicopter windows like a dream.
After the mountains, the canyon, the frantic streets of Sacramento—after everything—the sight of the Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon feels almost unreal. Late afternoon sun paints the water gold and copper, and somewhere below, waves crash against cliffs that look nothing like the granite I climbed this morning.
“There.” I point through the windshield. “Guardian HRS HQ.” Home.
The Guardian HRS compound materializes out of the darkness like a promise.
