She tried. Got her left hand flat on the floor and pushed. Her right wrist wouldn’t take weight at all—it folded under her the moment she pressed down, and the pain that shot through the joint pulled a sound from her teeth that she hated.
Her left knee refused next. She pushed and the kneecap slid and her leg went out from under her and she was back on the floor, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling of a room she didn’t recognize.
“I can’t.” The words were glass in her mouth. “My body isn’t—I can’t walk. My joints aren’t working. I…have a condition.”
She had never said those words to anyone. Never let another person see her at the point where her body simply stopped cooperating, where all the flexibility and range and impossible angles that made her what she was turned against her and left her stranded.
Something passed across his face. Fast—a fracture line that appeared and sealed in the same breath. He looked at her right wrist, swelling visibly now, and her left leg at the angle that said the knee wasn’t tracking.
He didn’t hesitate.
He crouched beside her and got his right arm under her shoulders. His left arm hooked beneath her knees. He lifted her off the floor in one motion, pulling her against his chest, and she leaned into him because she had no choice.
He carried her to the door.
“Wait. There are cameras all over the place.”
“I looped the feeds on my way in.”
He’d looped the feeds. That meant something about planning, about backup but the pain wouldn’t let her make sense of it.
He opened the door, checked the hallway. It was dark, empty. He moved into it without breaking stride. She was pressed against him, her right arm cradled against her own chest, her left hand gripping the front of his jacket because it was the only part of her that still worked the way it was supposed to.
“There’s a security desk near the main lobby,” she managed. Her voice was thin. “One guard. Maybe two.”
“I know. I came in past them.”
He carried her down a corridor she hadn’t mapped because she hadn’t thought she needed to. They reached a stairwell. He adjusted his grip and took the stairs down, one flight.
She felt every step like a detonation—her wrist grinding bone on bone, her knee sending white bolts of pain up her thigh with each jostle—but she bit the inside of her cheek and didn’t make a sound.
The ground floor opened into the back of a large atrium where the event was still running. Music and conversation spilled down the corridor toward them. Guests were drifting toward the exits in the loose, unhurried way people left parties that had peaked an hour ago—couples with their coats over their arms, small groups still laughing, a few people on their phones calling for rides.
Isaac stopped at the edge of the corridor. The noise of the event was just ahead. He looked down at her.
“I need to put you on your feet. Carrying you through a crowd draws too much attention.” His voice was low, careful. “Can you do that?”
She didn’t know. “Yes.”
“Just lean into me. I’ll take most of your weight.”
He set her down. She almost buckled. His arm locked around her waist, pulling her tight against his side. Her left leg screamed with every step but she made it move, blackness circling her vision. She somehow made it look like walking.
Isaac transformed. The tension drained from his face and what arrived in its place was effortless—warm, slightly embarrassed, the easy smile of a man who belonged in whatever room he happened to be standing in.
She realized he was wearing a tux. Of course he was wearing a tux.
He guided them straight into the thinning crowd.
A woman in a silver dress glanced over. Isaac caught her eye and gave a rueful shrug. “Third martini,” he said. “I told her.”
The woman laughed. “We’ve all been there.”
He kept moving. Past a cluster of guests waiting for the elevator, past the security guard who looked up and nodded, past a couple arguing quietly about parking. Nobody stopped him. Nobody questioned a man half-carrying a woman out of a party at the end of the night. It was the oldest scene in the world, and Isaac played it like he’d been rehearsing it his whole life.
Fallon leaned into him and kept her eyes down. The pain made the performance easy. She didn’t have to pretend to be out of it.
The night air hit her face. The moment they cleared the doors, Isaac picked her up again and the performance fell away from him like something physical being shed. His arms tightened around her. His breathing went ragged through his nose: controlled pulls, deliberate, a man keeping himself in one piece through sheer force of will.
