The word cuts through everything.
I move.
I don’t remember crossing the distance.
One second he’s across the room.
The next he’s in my arms.
I scoop him up so fast I nearly knock the caretaker over.
“Hey—hey—” I breathe, pressing my face into his hair, inhaling the familiar scent of him—warm skin, faint mineral traces, the soft sweetness of childhood that no amount of chaos can erase. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
He wraps his arms around my neck.
“Took long,” he says solemnly.
A hysterical laugh escapes me.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Loud,” he adds, glancing toward the distant rumble.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Very loud.”
He studies my face with that unnervingly perceptive little frown.
“Mama scared?”
The question lands like a knife.
I tighten my hold on him.
“Yes,” I say honestly. “But I’m here.”
He nods, apparently satisfied with that answer.
“Okay.”
Fenn steps closer.
“You need to move,” he says. “Transports are loading now.”
“I know.”
But I don’t move.
Not yet.
Because something is pulling at me.
A thread of instinct I can’t ignore.
I turn toward the open wall of reinforced glass that overlooks the arena.
From here, elevated above the chaos, the view is clearer.
And what I see makes my heart stop.
