He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his fingers laced tight like he’s holding himself together with tension alone. His head hangs low.
“Seth?”
He doesn’t lift his head.
I shut the door gently and step closer. My chest is already tight. I know that look on him.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He exhales like the breath has been trapped in his ribs for hours. “I don’t even know how to answer that.”
I sit beside him. I just look at him. His hands. His jaw. The faint bloodstain still on his shirt collar. I don’t know how to fix this, but I know I need him to know he’s not failing.
“You’ve been a better brother to them in one day than most people manage in a lifetime,” I lean my head on his shoulder. “You got them out. You kept them breathing. You protected them, even when they didn’t know they needed it.”
He lets out a quiet sigh.
I look down. “It’s not your fault, you know.”
His fingers twitch once, like he wants to believe me but can’t. “Then why does it feel like it?”
I could tell him it’s survivor’s guilt. That grief scrapes the inside of you raw and leaves nothing behind but blame. But he knows that already. And he’s not just grieving the people he lost. He’s grieving the life he never got.
I reach for the chain around his neck. His hand stills for a second when my fingers brush the vial, like the contact pulls him out of whatever he’s stuck in. The small glass rests warm against his skin, the darkened chain worn from never leaving his neck. My blood.
“I love that you never take this off,” I whisper.
His jaw tightens slightly. “They tried to take it when they brought me into the hospital. I almost tore the place apart trying to get it back.”
I look back down at it, my fingers steady around the glass. “When I drew my blood, I didn’t know it yet. But I was already pregnant.”
He goes completely still.
I lift my eyes to his. “So that’s me. And our baby. Both of us. Right there.”
He raises the vial slowly, holding it between his fingers. His thumb drags over its surface in a slow, absent motion, like he needs the contact to keep from spiraling.
“That was the only thing I thought about when I was bleeding out in that hotel. When I could barely see or breathe or move. This. You. Our baby. It was the only thing that kept me alive.”
I press my lips to his shoulder.
“I’m glad you made it back to me,” I whisper.
“I just don’t know what to do now.”
“You keep going,” I press my hand against his chest. “With me.”
But part of me still hurts. Something inside me still bleeds quietly where no one can see.
I draw in a breath and let it out slowly before the words start.
“They told me you were dead.”
Seth turns toward me.
The memory hits before I can stop it. Elliot standing there in the manor, his voice calm when he said it. Seth’s dead. The floor tilting beneath me. My lungs locking. My body collapsing before I even understood what was happening.
Then the basement.
