“Hit me.”
“Food. Like real food,” Kiera beams. “And a shower that doesn’t have kids listening outside the door. Maybe one night where we don’t talk about the future, also.”
I nod. “We can do that. Lila’s already declaring war on my pantry. Shower’s yours first. As for the future…” I shrug. “Tonight, it doesn’t exist. Just these four walls and our poor life choices.”
She snorts. “You say that like opera night was a mistake.”
Smiling at her, I take her face in my hands. “Nothing could ever make me regret that.”
Kiera watches me before she turns her head. “You don’t,” she whispers. It’s not quite a question. The trauma of Wade and Asher is weighing on her, even if she won’t say it out loud.
“I regret a lot of things. You are not on the list.”
Her throat works. “Even if this ends up being a no?” Kiera asks, voice low. “Even if I decide I can’t do this?”
“Still not on the list.” I laugh so deeply that it sounds like a growl. “What you decide from here doesn’t retroactively make that night a crime scene.”
For a second, I think she might cry, her eyes shine, tears damming at her waterline. She looks away, blinking hard. “Okay,” she says quietly. “That also…helps. But for the record, it was most definitely a crime scene.”
“Only if you turn me in,” I argue, letting out a soft laugh.
We stand there like that for a while, shoulders touching, hands linked, the warehouse humming around us like a big, ugly heartbeat. Eventually, Lila’s voice cuts through from below. “Sterling!” she yells. “If you don’t approve this grocery list, I’m buying nothing but kale and decaf.”
Kiera winces, “She means that.” She squeezes my hand once more, then lets go; the absence of contact immediately feels like a loss. “We should go down. Before she adds tofu to that list.”
“You two are monsters,” I mutter.
Kiera pushes off the railing and turns toward the stairs. Hesitating, she looks back at me, something bare and sharp and fond all tangled up in her expression. “Sterling,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For not…running.”
“I’ll save the running for when you start sending me at-home ultrasound videos from whatever safe hole we end up in,” I chuckle.
“You think you’re getting videos?” She rolls her eyes. “Cute.”
I offer her a shallow bow toward the stairs. “After you, Thorn.” Keira snorts, but there’s warmth under it. We head back down together, the echo of our boots on metal. Downstairs, Lila starts waving a notebook at me like a weapon. Cam’s half-buried in cables. For the first time, when I look at the space, I don’t just see a bunker—I see something we might be able to call home.
Chapter Forty-One
Lila’s ranting about Sterling’s pantry as she’s standing in the little industrial kitchen, slamming cabinets open and shut. “Why do you have three kinds of instant ramen, but absolutely no actual food?” She demands, turning and throwing a pack of noodles at him.
“Ramen is food,” Sterling says from his perch on a nearby stool. “It has all the major food groups: salt, carbs, shame…”
“Sit down, Ki,” Lila cuts in. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”Already mother-henning me, and she doesn’t even know yet.
“I’m fine,” I lie. I’m running on fumes, adrenaline, and wrapped in a body that keeps sending little signals. Too aware of the new life growing under my skin. I sit down next to Sterling.
Cam’s at the makeshift table, cross-referencing with his laptop and notebook. He looks like he’s already halfway down the rabbit hole. “How many kids did you count at Mara’s?” he asks, not looking up.
“Seventeen,” Lila answers. “Plus, one very tired house mom who deserves a medal and a vacation.”Lila is acting weird; she’s never this motherly.
“Plus, the ghosts,” I add under my breath.
Cam looks over at me, his fingers pausing on the keys. “Kiera…”
“Don’t,” I say. “If you how are you feeling, me one more time, I’m going to throw up on your laptop and tell your future grandchildren it was on purpose.”
