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I tightened my grip around her and closed my eyes.

She was here. Warm. Real.

Her body shook against mine. “I thought you were dead,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“You stopped talking. In the message.”

“I know.”

“The message ended, and I had no clue what was happening, and then I got here and everyone was standing outside because they couldn’t go in.”

She buried her face against my shirt. “I didn’t know if I could get all of you out.”

I smoothed my hand over her hair. “You did.”

“I thought I missed someone. I kept counting.” Her words broke apart. “I couldn’t stop. Every time I got someone outside, I kept thinking there was another person.”

I tightened my arms. “Sloane.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to you.”

The admission came against my shoulder.

“Any of you,” she added. “Hudson, I know I don’t have the right to say that after what I did. I know I’m the person who caused everyone pain. But I love your family. I love Caldwell and Grandma Ruth and Patty and Trevor and everyone else, even Byron when he explains things I already understand.”

From somewhere behind me, Byron said, “That was unnecessary.”

A few weak laughs moved through the yard. Sloane let out a sound that might have become one under different circumstances. Then she pulled back enough to look at me. Her eyes were swollen and red. A streak of soot crossed one cheek. A wound on her arm had bled through the tied fabric.

I touched her face. “I wouldn’t know what to do if anything happened to you either.”

She stared at me. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. She shook her head. “You shouldn’t after what I put you through… the way I lied about who I really was.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what I should feel.”

Her fingers remained twisted in my shirt. I looked at them, then at the bruising along her wrist. “How many times did you go inside?”

“I don’t know. I stopped counting.”

Patty stepped closer. “Ten or eleven between both houses.”

I stared at Sloane. She looked defensive. “There were people inside. I had to help.”

“You could have collapsed.”

“I didn’t, though,” she whispered.

A playful irritation rose, familiar enough that it almost relieved me. “You do not get to lecture me about self-preservation again.”

Sloane blinked.

“You ran into two contaminated houses.”