Yet, something complicated the edges of that relief. Not desire—nothing so straightforward. More like a faint signal from a part of me that had gone quiet, a reminder of a version of myself who had known what it was to want and be wanted without the threat embedded within it.
I didn’t suppress the thought; I simply set it aside. This was not a door I had any business opening—not tonight, with everything pressing in, and not after ten years of evidence that I no longer trusted my own judgment.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
Finn didn’t hesitate. “Inventory,” he said, pulling open a cabinet and scanning its contents. “We need to know exactly what we’re working with. And I haven’t eaten since last night.”
“There are canned goods in the lower cabinet,” I said, stepping closer. “Pasta, soups, some boxed stuff. I don’t know how much. Here, I made this last night,” I handed him a half loaf of banana bread.
“Thanks, and good.” He crouched, pulling items out and lining them up on the counter in neat rows. He was controlled and methodical, building order from available materials the way someone does when order is the only tool left.
“Next, we fill everything we can with water,” he said, still crouched, reading labels as he absently ate the bread.
“The sink still works.”
“For now.” He looked up at me, his expression neither soft nor cruel. “When the grid goes down—and it will—we lose pressure. Whatever’s in the pipes at that point is all we get.”
Something about that settled in my chest and stayed there.
“How much should we—”
“Everything.” He stood. “Bathtubs, pots, every container in the house. If it holds water, we’ll use it.”
I nodded. He turned the faucet on. Water rushed steadily into the first pot.
For now.
I started pulling things down from cabinets—pitchers, old Tupperware from the back of a shelf, mixing bowls I hadn’t used in years, a stockpot Lily had given me two Christmases ago.
I set another container under the faucet, my hands moving steadily.
The house creaked.
Then, beyond the boards, a scream—close enough that my body understood it before my mind did. It cut off abruptly.
My hands froze. Water ran over the rim of the bowl and onto my fingers, but I didn’t move.
Finn didn’t stop. Didn’t look up. “Keep filling.”
I forced my hands to obey. Water hit plastic, a strange noise in the quiet—too domestic, too small.
“How long do you think—”
He didn’t look at me. “Don’t know.”
His blunt honesty was an undeniable, terrifying truth.
I watched him for a moment—steady, reorganized around a reality that had collapsed in hours.
I looked down at the water rising slowly in the bowl.
From the hallway, Lily’s laughter at something Fiona said drifted through the dark house, reaching me in the kitchen like a sudden, unexpected comfort.
She was still in there. Still capable of that.
Outside, the city continued to unravel. Inside, we kept filling containers with water.
I set the full bowl aside and reached for the next.
