I stepped closer, lowering my voice even though the house was quiet around us, habit overriding the absence of immediate threat.
“I go for the Suburban alone. You and the girls hold here until I pull up to the stoop.”
Her jaw tightened. “That leaves you open to a lot, Finn.”
“I know.”
Too long. Every part of my training screamed “too long”—it said “abort,” said “find another way,” said a plan with that kind of exposure wasn’t a plan at all. But the alternative was moving four people across open ground with nothing in our favor. Stacking the two options against each other, as I’d been doing, I kept arriving at the same unwelcome answer.
“They move the second I’m in position. Fast, no hesitation, no going back for anything.”
She nodded slowly. “And if something goes wrong?”
I held her gaze. “It won’t.”
A beat passed between us, long enough for me to catch the flicker behind her eyes—not doubt, exactly, but the awareness that “it won’t” was a refusal, not a plan. She didn’t call me on it.
“What’s the modification?”
I exhaled and glanced toward the ceiling, running the sequence through my head as I had been since three in the morning.
“There’s a car sitting on the south end of the block. Visible from the roof.”
She understood before I had finished. “You’re going to set off the alarm.”
“I shoot out the window from the roof. The alarm kicks on, drawing anything in the immediate area south. That clears a line north to the Suburban and buys me time on the street.”
“And we escape while they’re chasing the noise,” she said.
“Exactly.”
She turned it over in silence, her eyes moving to the window and back. “How long does that buy us?”
“Most car alarms run for four minutes before they cycle off. I won’t need half that—the second that glass breaks, I’m already moving.”
“Four minutes.” She said it slowly, as if she could hold each second individually and test its weight. “That’s not much room.”
“It’s enough, Libby. I promise it’s enough.”
Her chin lifted. A single, sharp nod.
“Okay.”
No qualification. No conditions. Just trust—three lives worth of it: hers, Fiona’s, and Lily’s. All of it resting on desperation and the four-minute lifespan of a car alarm.
“Finn,” she said, using the tone that meant she needed me simply to be present with her.
I met her gaze.
“Come back.”
“I will.”
My voice was quieter this time, not a reassurance, but a declaration of the only outcome I intended to allow.
“Alright,” she said.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
