My stomach flips. I hate that it flips. I hate more that I don't hate the name, that some treasonous part of me wants to hear him say it again.
"Where do you want this?" Knox steps through the doorway behind him,Garrett ducking sideways to clear the frame with his horns,two brothers at his back carrying cases of water and medical supplies. His gaze cuts across the clinic and lands on me.
"Storage room." I point without looking at Finn. "End of the hall. Supplies go on the metal shelves, water on the floor."
Knox nods. The brothers move.
But Finn doesn't move.
He leans against the counter three feet from me, and I can feel his gaze on the side of my face. Not the flirty once-over he aims at other women, that lazy sweep from ankles to eyes designed to make my heart rate spike. This look carries an edge. More focused.
Then one of the brothers calls his name from the hallway and he turns, cracking a joke about plywood and poor life choices, and the intensity vanishes. His familiar smirk back in place.
I exhale through my teeth and finish counting suture kits.
Dr. Bryce emerges from her office with a box of files tucked under one arm and her coat already on. Mid-fifties, silver bob, moves like a woman who's never panicked a day in her life and isn't starting now.
"You sure you want to stay?" She pauses beside me, car keys in hand.
"Someone has to."
"Jessica." She lowers her voice. "This storm is projected to drop eighteen inches of rain in twelve hours. Storm surge could flood the lower streets. The National Guard is setting up inland—"
"And if someone breaks a leg or goes into labor or takes a piece of debris to the skull, they need a clinic. Not a thirty-mile drive through floodwater." I hold her stare. "I've ridden out worse."
She studies me for a beat, then nods. Squeezes my shoulder. "The satellite phone is in my office. Battery backup's charged. You need anything—"
"I know, I know."
Dr. Bryce leaves. One by one, the last of the staff filter out—the receptionist with her cat carrier, the lab tech with his laptop bag, the janitor who shakes my hand and saysGod blesslike he's not sure he'll see me again.
The first patients trickle in before the last car pulls out of the lot. A man with a gash across his forearm from a shutter that ripped free in a gust—six stitches, clean edges, minimal bleeding. I irrigate the wound, suture it closed, and send him out with gauze and instructions he probably won't follow. Then a kid with a sprained wrist from helping his dad board windows, crying more from fear than pain. I wrap it, give him a lollipop from the doctor's stash, and tell him he's tougher than the hurricane.
His mom mouthsthank youover his head. I nod and wash my hands and try not to think about the barometric pressure dropping like a stone.
"Knox wants me here through the storm." Finn's voice from the hallway. My head snaps toward him—he's crowding the doorframe, arms braced on either side—a position that stretches his shirt across his chest and makes the Feral Sons patch on his vest pull taut. His dark braid hangs over one shoulder, the jagged edge of his snapped tusk pale against his green skin.
"The clinic needs securing," he continues. "Windows, doors, generator hookup. Knox's orders."
"I don't need a babysitter."
His jaw tightens. Hurt flashes behind his eyes—there and gone. But his voice stays level, stays light. "Good thing I'm here for the building, not you."
Knox passes behind him carrying the last case of water. He catches my eye, and a weight moves between the brothers. A silent conversation in a language I don't speak. Knox's hand lands on Finn's shoulder, grips once, and then he's gone.
The other brothers file out. Engines roar to life in the parking lot. The rumble fades down the coast road until only one bike remains.
Finn turns back to me. "Last convoy leaves in forty minutes. Heads inland to the evacuation center in Deermont." He pauses. The mask slips. "You should be on it."
"No."
"This is stupid, Jess. You're going to get yourself killed playing hero."
"I'm not playing anything." I slam the supply case shut. "This is my job. Maybe you don't understand that."
"I understand you've got a death wish—"
"Don't youdare—"
