Page 137 of Meant for Mayhem

Mikko’s hand slid down my back, then took the hand not holding Leena. Our fingers interlocked, weaving together as if this was always how it was meant to be. We walked out into the cold Christmas Eve air, Leena already half-asleep against me, her temporary cast a bright white reminder against my dark sweater.

Mikko opened the back door and helped me get Leena into the car seat, his hands steady now. When the last buckle clicked, he stayed crouched there for a second longer, one hand resting on her good arm.

“Let’s go home,” I said quietly.

He nodded, still looking at her. Then he looked up at me.

“Thank you,” he said, voice rough. “For everything.”

I reached over and squeezed his wrist once. “Always.”

We climbed into the car—Beckett driving, Mikko in the front this time, while I sat beside Leena—the silence that settled over us different from the one on the way here. It wasn’t paralyzing fear, but something new taking shape that none of us knew how to name yet.

Leena breathed softly next to me. Every few minutes, my hand drifted over to check that her arm was still elevated. The rest of the time, I watched Mikko’s profile, the streetlights catching the softening lines of his face, and felt the last of the night’s panic ease.

30

Beckett dropped us off at Lori’s after midnight. Emmy met us at the door with a worried look, but I shook my head when she started to ask questions. Shannon answered for both of us in low tones while I carried Leena upstairs, every step careful, like the wrong movement might undo whatever fragile peace we’d found on the ride home.

I stood at the top of the steps, unable to look at Beckett’s old room without picturing Leena lying on the floor. Shannon seemed to understand my predicament, leading me away into the master suite that used to be hers. The room was dark, only a bedside lamp turned on next to the bed. I lowered Leena into the center of it with hands that still didn’t feel steady, settling her casted arm on a pillow the way the nurse had shown us. Luckily, she didn’t stir, staying curled on her side, cheeks flushed from sleep, looking impossibly small on the king-size mattress.

I stood there while the entire night replayed in fractured pieces—the thud of her body hitting the floor, the silent scream frozen on her face. I’d shut down so completely in the hospital that the last few hours felt like they’d happened to someone else. Now the numbness was cracking, leaving nothing but guilt and relief and a love so fierce it bordered on pain.

I reached down and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead with the back of my fingers, barely touching, terrified even now that I might hurt her somehow.

She was safe.

Breathing.

Whole.

But the image of her in pain still lived behind my eyes, and I didn’t know how long it would take to go away.

Shannon stood beside me, the only sounds the soft tick of the old radiator and the occasional quiet snore from the bed.

“I’ll be right back,” Shannon said quietly.

She slipped out the French doors onto the balcony before I even looked up. The door clicked mostly shut behind her, left cracked to let the night air drift in.

I stayed where I was, watching that narrow strip of darkness the same way I’d watched Lori’s closed door earlier. Part of me still felt suspended in that hospital room, unable to move, unable to speak, watching everything happen around me while I stayed frozen. But the moment I heard a soft, broken sniff, I moved.

Shannon stood at the railing, arms wrapped around herself, looking down at the frozen pond while her shoulders shook on a silent cry. I crossed the balcony in three steps and pulled her against my chest, wrapping both arms around her like I could hold every broken piece of the night together. She stiffened for half a second, then collapsed into me with a sound so raw, it tore something open in my chest.

“Hey.” I pressed my mouth to her temple. “It’s over. She’s alright.”

That seemed to make her cry harder, and I held on, letting her cry it out.

We stood there long enough for the cold to start seeping through our clothes, both of us angled so we could still see Leena through the open doors.

“I’m sorry,” Shannon whispered eventually, voice wrecked. “About the house. About freezing up on you. I know I made everything worse today.”

I tightened my arms until there was no space left between us. “You don’t have to apologize for needing space. I promised I wouldn’t make any more decisions about your future without you, and then I broke that promise.”

She let out a shaky, almost angry breath. “I saw everything you were trying to show me—the yard, the kitchen, Leena growing up there—and my brain refused to let me think this could be mine. That I’d somehow tricked myself into believing this was real when it was only ever temporary, but you’ve never treated me that way. And then I couldn’t figure out how to climb back out of that spiral without ruining the only good thing I’ve ever had.”

I rested my chin on top of her head, watching Leena’s chest rise and fall under the covers, and felt the words I’d been carrying for weeks finally push their way free. “This isn’t temporary. Not for me.”

Shannon went still in my arms, so I put a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to mine. Her eyes were red-rimmed and shining, cheeks wet, and still, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.