“Why?” she asked.
The question sat there, simpler than it had any right to be.
I shrugged again, but the gesture came out heavier this time, weighted. “She was hurt.”
Fiona held her gaze on me a beat too long.
“That’s just who he is,” she said to Lily. Not loud. Not for effect. Just steady and certain, the way she always delivered the things she actually believed.
I broke her gaze first.
“Yeah, well.” I cleared my throat. “Don’t go breaking any ankles while we’re here. I’m not hauling anyone through those streets.”
Lily smiled, but something heavier moved in behind it—reality settling back over the room, quiet and inevitable.
I straightened up, letting my focus sharpen.
“I’m going to grab a few hours. Libby and I have the night watch. Someone stays up at all times, with no gaps. Next storm is our window—we move then.”
Lily nodded, absorbing it. “We’ll stay ready.”
“Good.”
I turned to leave—and caught it.
Fiona’s look.
Subtle, but completely unmistakable. The expression she’d inherited directly from our mother. She knew exactly what Libby and I had been doing.
I looked away.
“See you in a few hours,” I said and turned for the door.
“Yeah,” she said, a slow, dangerous smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “You too, Finn.”
I didn’t answer. Just pulled the door shut behind me, quicker than I needed to—and stood in the hallway for one second with my hand still on the frame.
Because that was the last thing I needed right now—the absolute last thing—
Fiona had always been able to see straight through me.
Some things, apparently, didn’t change.
I stepped back into Libby’s room and closed the door quietly behind me.
She hadn’t moved. Still curled exactly where I’d left her—one arm tucked beneath her head, the other resting loosely against her chest, her breathing deep and even. The sheet had slipped and pooled at her waist, leaving one breast exposed, pale in the low light, the nipple flushed pink.
I felt myself harden.
I should have looked away faster. Should have already been looking somewhere else. A low heat coiled in my gut, immediate and completely indifferent to the list of reasons I’d been building why none of this was a good idea.
Stop.
I dragged my eyes away.
Every rational part of me said to take the chair. The floor. The other side of the room. Anywhere that wasn’t this—anywhere that put back what she’d somehow crossed without even meaning to.
My body ignored all of it.
