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I stare at him. “You’re not going to tell me I can’t go.”

“No.” He sets the mug down on the step beside him and stands, brushing off his jeans.

“That’s not comforting.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.” He opens the front door and holds it, waiting. “It’s the truth.”

I should hate him for that. For the casual certainty, the way he makes my choice sound simple when it feels like tearing skin. I should walk past him without touching the doorframe, without acknowledging that he’s standing in this space where he belongs and I don’t.

I go inside.

He follows, close enough that I can smell coffee and something clean. I stop in the hallway, not sure where I’m going, or what I’m doing here.

Noah stops too. He doesn’t crowd me. Just stands at a distance that feels deliberate, measuring the exact inches I need to not bolt.

“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” he says.

“I know.”

“You’re going to anyway.”

I look at him. He’s not smiling. There’s no victory in his face, no satisfaction that his trap is working. Just that same open patience, the kind that sees too much.

“Yes,” I say.

He nods, like I told him something he already knew. “Linens are in the hall closet. Extra blankets too. Take what you need.”

He walks toward the kitchen, leaving me in the hallway with my cold hands and my choice that doesn’t yet feel like freedom.

I don’t move for a long time. I just stand there and listen to the house wake up around me…Kipton’s quiet movements in the kitchen, the distant sound of a shower, the low murmur of a voice that might be Ryker on another call. Sounds of a life that isn’t mine.

I tell myself I’m staying for Bailey, that it’s temporary, a strategic pause while I figure out our next move. I tell myself a lot of things.

But when I open the hall closet and pull down a blanket, I’m not thinking about escape routes.

I’m thinking about how the floor felt against my back. Solid. Real. Something I could trust not to give way.

That’s the thought I take back upstairs with me. The one I don’t examine too closely. The one that feels most dangerous of all.

I don’t hear them come in, but I can feel the air shift immediately.

Turning, I see the three of them standing in my doorway. Ryker pretty much fills the doorway, his shoulders almost touching both sides of the frame. Kipton stands behind him, but I feel his quiet intensity from here. Noah slouches against the jamb, arms crossed.

“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” Ryker says.

“I know.”

“You’re going to anyway.”

I look up at him. The snake tattoo catches the rays coming from the window. “Are you three going to keep standing there staring?”

“No.” He steps inside, and the others follow his lead, Noah closing the door behind them.

When they get to where I’m lying on the floor, Kipton crouches in front of me, his eyes sharp, immediately noticing the way my knuckles have turned white from my grip on the blanket.

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m cold.”