Page 135 of What We Don't Say: Part Two

Garrett looks up at her from beneath my hand. “You have poisoned him against the only person who kept him safe.”

As I shift back enough to give him room, Sloane grabs Garrett by the shirt again and hauls him halfway upright. His fist draws back, and there is nothing controlled left in the way he looks at the man in front of him.

My fist lands against his cheek and knocks him sideways into Sloane’s grip. The moment his body goes slack, Sloane pulls him back and hits him again.

Callie shouts for us to stop. Her voice cracks the first time, swallowed beneath Garrett’s grunt and Sloane’s breathing, but she steps closer and says it again.

“Stop. Both of you, stop.”

I freeze with my hand locked around Garrett’s wrist. Sloane’s fist remains raised, his whole body trembling while his eyes drag away from Garrett and find Callie.

She is standing beside us with tears on her face and blood across one knuckle. Fear still shakes through her, but her gaze holds Sloane’s until his arm lowers.

I force Garrett facedown again and pin both wrists behind him. Sloane stumbles backward from us as though releasing the violence costs him balance.

Callie reaches him first. Sloane catches her around the waist and pulls her against his chest, pressing his face into her hair while his breathing breaks.

“I am sorry, baby,” he says, his bloody hand cupping the back of her head. “I felt you, and then I saw him near you. I could not see anything else.”

Callie grips his shirt and lets him hold her for several seconds before she pulls back enough to look at him. “He can't pay for what he did if he is dead.”

Sloane’s mouth twists. He nods once, then again, the movement unsteady as he looks over her shoulder at Garrett beneath me.

“I know.” He presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes. “I am sorry I scared you.”

I keep one knee against Garrett’s back while reaching my free hand toward Callie. She comes close enough for me to hold her hip, and the tremor moving through her passes into my palm.

“I am sorry too,” I tell her. My knuckles burn, and blood from my split lip fills my mouth when I speak. “I should have stopped before you had to ask twice.”

“You stopped.” Callie covers my hand with hers and looks down at Garrett. “Now keep him there until the police come.”

Garrett turns his face enough to glare at her. “You think this proves you are strong?”

Callie releases my hand and straightens. “I think the camera proves you broke into the house, the filings prove what you did before that, and the police are about to find you pinned to the floor with expired paperwork in your coat.”

For the first time since I have known him, Garrett has no answer ready.

His face changes beneath the blood and swelling. The certainty that has carried him through every lie begins to crack as he looks from Callie to the broken door, then toward Idris speaking steadily to the dispatcher.

Sloane moves beside me again, but he does not touch Garrett. He keeps one arm around Callie’s waist and watches the man on the floor with a feral stillness that makes it clear how little distance remains between restraint and another blow.

Callie looks past us toward Theo.

He is still held against Idris near the far side of the nest. His face is pale, his eyes fixed on Garrett, and every attempt to speak ends in a broken movement of his throat.

Callie slips out of Sloane’s arm and crosses the room. Idris loosens his hold only when Theo reaches toward her, and she takes his face gently between her hands.

“I am here, Star,” she says, moving close enough to block his view of Garrett. “You don't have to talk.”

Theo’s mouth opens again, but nothing comes out. His whole body folds toward her instead, and Callie gathers him against her chest while Idris keeps an arm around both of them.

She kisses Theo’s hair and rubs his back without asking him to explain what happened. He clutches her sweater in both fists, breathing against her neck until the shaking begins to ease by small degrees.

Garrett turns beneath me when he sees them. “Theo, look at me. You know I have never hurt you.”

Theo’s body jerks at the sound of his voice. Idris turns his head and looks directly at Garrett with a coldness that quiets the room.

“You entered his nest by force,” Idris says, lowering the phone after the dispatcher confirms officers are less than two minutes away. “You used his fear to demand obedience while he could not speak. Do not address him again.”