Page 131 of No Good Fight

ALEX

The lie sits under my tongue long after everyone accepts it.

Just a lot I missed. I need rest.

Eight words, and somehow they manage to make the whole room rearrange itself around me. Mom touches my forehead again, Dad starts gathering the discharge papers into a neat stack, and Nia slides off the counter with the kind of suspicious look that tells me she does not fully believe me but loves me enough not to challenge me in front of everyone.

Josh stays near the back door, one hand on the lock, watching Ryder instead of me like he expects him to know what is wrong and fix it before the rest of them have to panic again.

Ryder doesn’t look away from my face.

That is the problem with loving a man who notices everything. Even when he has soot under one fingernail and a bandage at his temple. Even when he looks like he has spent the last day being hollowed out by the fear of what could have happened to me. Even when I’m wrapped in blankets in a nest on his couch, drowning in other people’s care, he still sees the shape of the thing I am trying so hard to hide.

Another text comes through while Mom is arguing with Dad about whether soup is enough protein.

I don’t open it right away. I can’t. My fingers are already tight around the phone, and Ryder is close enough to see the tendon jumping in my wrist if he looks down. He doesn’t reach for it again after I pulled it away from him, but his stillness feels worse than grabbing. It feels like trust he is choosing to give me, even though some trained, protective part of him is screaming not to.

The worst part is that at this moment, he’s right not to believe me. I’m intentionally lying to the man I love, about the monster who keeps trying to hurt me.

But I have no other choice. Not if I want to save Mrs. Vance.

I turn the screen against my thigh and cough once to cover the way my breathing changes.

Ryder’s hand lands on the edge of the couch beside my knee. Not on me. Close enough that I can take it if I want. Careful enough that I almost hate him for being exactly what I need right now.

“You need bed,” he says quietly.

I nod because I really do need to rest, and because it’s the only thing I can’t lie about right now.

Getting everyone to leave takes longer than it should.

Mom wants to stay. Dad offers to sleep in the chair. Josh says nothing, which is worse because his silence is a locked door with a heartbeat behind it. Nia is the one who finally picks up Mom’s purse and pushes it gently against her chest.

“Alex has a head injury, Mom. She had smoke inhalation, and enough hovering humans to qualify as a small emergency shelter. Let’s let her breathe.”

Mom starts to protest until I cough to get her attention.

“I love you, but I cannot breathe with everyone staring at me. You all started panicking over my unread notifications.” I hedge the truth a bit. “Nothing else has changed, but I need to rest.”

That does what nothing else has managed. It hurts her. I see it. Then she kisses my hair and lets Dad lead her out.

Josh waits until they’re gone before he moves or says anything.

He looks at me first, then at Ryder. His eyes are still red around the edges, and there is a kind of exhaustion in him that makes him look younger and older at the same time. “Call me if anything changes.” He pulls me into a tight hug. “You scared the shit out of me, and it’s never allowed to happen again.”

Ryder stands near the couch, shoulders tight, hands empty. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”

Josh’s gaze cuts back to me, and for one second, I think he knows. Not the details. Not Mrs. Vance’s broken cane or Preston’s words or the address waiting on my phone with a 24 hour time clock on it. Just that something in me has gone quiet in a way it should not be quiet, and he can’t quite figure it out.

Nia touches his back before he can start digging. “Come on, handsome. You can glare from the truck.”

He lets her pull him toward the door, but he stops on the porch and turns back. “Allycat.”

The nickname breaks something small in my chest.

I lift my hand from the blanket and wave him away.

It is enough to get him outside, and I take a deep breath.