I nodded toward the house behind me. The noise from the speakers had cut out abruptly, Anders must have reached the van. Or Simon had cut a cable.
"If you come back up the hill," I said, "I will put you in the center of the bed. I will put my hands over your ears. And I will hum until the world goes away."
She stared at me as her chest heaved, and the rain mixed with her tears.
"You promised," she whispered. "You promised you wouldn't touch me unless I begged."
"I lied," I admitted. "I want to touch you every second of every day. But I won't. Not if you don't want it."
I extended a hand. Palm up. Mud-streaked. Steady.
"Come back to the pack, Tessa," I pleaded. "Let us handle the noise. You just handle the breathing."
She looked at my hand. Then at the dark, dangerous path behind her. Then at me.
"You left me," she accused again, but the fire was gone, replaced by exhaustion.
"And I came back," I vowed. "We all came back."
She shivered, a violent, full-body tremor.
Slowly, agonizingly, she crawled forward through the mud. She didn't take my hand. She collapsed forward, burying her face effectively in the damp flannel of my chest.
"Make it quiet," she wept into my shirt. "Daniel, please. Make it quiet."
I wrapped my massive arms around her, pulling her out of the dirt, shielding her from the wind, the drones, and the past.
"I've got you," I rumbled against her hair. "Project Silence is active."
I lifted her up, turned my back on the cliff, and carried her toward the house.
TWENTY-SIX
Tessa
The silence Daniel promised wasn't real. It was a temporary air pocket in a sinking ship.
He carried me through the back door, his boots heavy on the hardwood floor, his chest vibrating against my cheek with a low, continuous rumble that tried to counteract the screaming coming from the driveway. The recording had started up again, though this one seemed like it was a lower quality, which I supposed was something.
"...look at her! Oh my god, she's leaking!"
My teenage voice, distorted by cheap amplification, bounced off the glass walls of the living room. It was a sonic weapon. It stripped the skin right off my bones, leaving me raw and shivering in Daniel’s arms. I was covered in mud from the trail, my hair a tangled disaster, wearing a stolen hoodie and leggings that felt like paper armor against the artillery fire outside.
"Put me down," I whispered, though I clung to his flannel shirt like a burr. "The bathroom. I have to get back to the bathroom."
"No more hiding," Daniel said. He didn't stop moving until we were in the center of the room, away from the glass, in the structural shadow of the fireplace.
"They're watching!" I hissed, pointing a trembling hand at the window where a black drone hovered like a giant, angry hornet. "They have cameras. They have the audio. Daniel, please, just let me hide."
"Tessa."
The voice didn't come from the chest I was pressed against. It came from the hallway.
I whipped my head around.
Anders stood there.
He looked like a man who had walked through a hurricane to get to me. His white dress shirt was soaked through, clinging to the slabs of muscle on his chest and arms, unbuttoned halfway down. His golden hair, usually lacquered into perfect submission, was wild and wet, plastered to his forehead.
