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“I valued correct structure!”

“You absolutely alphabetize for fun.”

She points toward me. “You don’t get to judge anybody, Ashby. You were wearing decorative chains while quoting philosophy.”

By late afternoon, Seattle finally appears along the horizon beneath low clouds and streaks of fading sunlight.

Laurel notices the skyline first.

Her whole body stills beside me.

“She’s here,” she whispers. “I can feel it.”

Not hope anymore.

Belief.

I glance toward her briefly before reaching across the center console without fully thinking it through.

My hand settles over hers, and the warmth of her fingers does nothing to calm my nerves. Laurel looks down at the unexpected contact, startled by it.

Then up at me.

I should probably let go.

But then her hand turns slightly beneath mine and squeezes it, holding on. Suddenly, this thing between the four of us doesn’t feel impossible

It feels like we’re less separate people chasing the same disaster and more like a unit moving toward a specific goal together.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Laurel

Seattle feels like somebody turned the sky into concrete.

Rain streaks across the windshield as Ashby pulls up outside the first shelter on the PI's list. My stomach has been in knots since we crossed into the city.

Nobody moves when the engine shuts off.

The closer we get to answers, the harder it becomes to breathe around the possibility that Maggie might be here.

Torin leans forward between the seats first. “You want one of us with you?”

“Yes.”

The answer comes out too fast.

I clear my throat and stare very hard at the shelter door instead of the three men who definitely noticed. Briggs’s expression softens briefly before he opens the passenger door. “Congratulations,” he says dryly. “You’re stuck with all three emotional support bikers.”

“I genuinely think that sentence should concern society.”

“Nah,” Torin says, climbing out beside him. “Society already lost control years ago.”

Rain drizzles steadily across the street while we walk toward the shelter entrance together.

The building itself sits between a laundromat and a church with peeling blue paint, the windows fogged softly from warmth inside. My pulse climbs harder with every step.

What if she’s here?