"Dislocated shoulder. They reset it. He's in the room next door pretending he doesn't need painkillers."
"Raven." The guilt surfaces before I can stop it. Her arm. The blood. The wall I left her behind. "Is she okay?"
"Twelve stitches. She's at a hotel in Trim with Aidan." He sees my face. "She's fine, Aoife. Matty went back for her."
I nod. But the knowing doesn't make the guilt any lighter.
"The men who died at Aidan's house." I watch his face. "How many, in the end?"
"Twelve." He says it flat. No inflection. He doesn't list the names. Doesn't break it down by family—just the number, sitting between us like something with weight.
Twelve men who were alive three days ago. Who had people waiting for them to come home.
"The funerals start tomorrow," William says. "I'll be at every one."
I don't argue. Don't offer to come. These are his allies. His call brought them to that house, and his war put them in the ground. That debt is his to pay, and he knows it, and the way his jaw sets when he says it tells me he's already carrying every one of those twelve names somewhere behind his ribs.
The door opens again, and this time it's Matty. He stands in the doorway with two paper cups of tea. Dark hair pushed back off his forehead. No visible injuries. He looks tired, but his face gives nothing away.
"Tea," he says. He hands one cup to William and sets the other on my bedside table. Then he looks at me. "You look rough."
"Thank you, Matty."
"Welcome." He doesn't sit. He stands near the window with his hands in his pockets, his gaze moving between William and the door.
"Raven told me to tell you something." He shifts his weight but doesn't move from the window. "She says you owe her a bottle of wine for leaving her behind that wall."
The guilt hits again. Sharper this time, hearing it from Matty. I'd do it again. I know that. But the knowing doesn't help.
"I'll buy her a case," I say.
Matty almost smiles. It makes him look younger. Then it's gone.
He glances at William. Something passes between them. A look I can't read.
"I'll be outside," Matty says, and leaves.
William watches the door close. His hand tightens on mine.
"He hasn't slept," he says quietly. "Not since the field. He was the one who found me after I went down. He and Aidan carried me to the car." He pauses. "Matty drove. Aidan said he didn't speak the entire way here. Just drove."
I think about Matty at the car door. The way he looked at me once and then turned back without a word.
"He needs to rest," I say.
"He won't. Not until he decides it's safe." William shifts again. Winces again. "He's got the hallway. Jason has the parking lot entrance. Neither of them will stand down."
"William."
"What?"
"When do you rest?"
He looks at me. His thumb is still moving over my knuckles, back and forth, the only part of him that seems to work without conscious effort.
"When you're out of here," he says. "When I know you're somewhere safe and I can lock a door and put my back against it."
That's not an answer. That's a man who will run himself into the ground before he admits he's already there. I've watched himdo it for weeks now. Stay sober when everything around him is collapsing. Hold meetings when he should be sleeping. Plan a strategy when his body is screaming at him to stop. He won't break because breaking isn't something William knows how to do. He just bends further and further until the distance between standing and falling is so thin you can't see it anymore.
