The sound that came out of her didn’t feel like hers.
It was ugly and raw, and it shook her whole body. Atlas pressed his head harder against her, Naomi tightened her arm around her, Maggie brought her hand back to her shoulder, and Mariah stayed exactly where she was on the floor in front of her.
She cried until she had nothing left. Until her whole body ached with it, her chest hollowed out, her throat raw.
When the worst of it had passed, she sat there emptied out, the quilt around her shoulders, Mariah’s flower pot in her lap, the little white blooms blurring in and out of focus.
Sweet Alice.
She pressed the pad of her thumb against one tiny petal. Paper-thin. Softer than she expected.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “This was the right thing to bring.”
“Okay,” Mariah said, like she’d been holding her breath and could let it go now.
“Walker and the boys are all outside,” Johanna said quietly. “I got them set up with a carafe of Nessie’s coffee and some of her muffins, so they’ll stay out there as long as you need them. He says to tell you nobody’s going to bother you. That door doesn’t open unless one of us opens it.”
Greta swallowed and nodded.
Johanna sat on the edge of the coffee table, knees almost touching Greta’s, hands folded in her lap. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s fine. We’ll just be here until you don’t want us here anymore.”
Boots on the porch. Heavy ones this time. The whole rhythm of the house shifted with the sound of them.
The door opened a few inches and Bear filled the gap, hat in one hand, King at his heel. He didn’t step inside. He stayed on the threshold, looking straight at Greta on the floor.
“Hey, Tink.” He paused. “You okay?”
Greta tried to say something back and couldn’t get it out.
He looked at her for another beat and shifted his weight. He was a man used to doing, fixing, healing, and he couldn’t do any of it right now. She knew her pain was hurting him. But she was so tired of putting on a brave face for everyone.
More tears erupted from her eyes.
Bear took a step forward like he wanted to reach for her, but she shook her head. If he touched her right now, she would break completely, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to pull herself together.
“Why don’t you go wait outside with the guys for now?” Johanna suggested.
He glanced helplessly at Naomi.
Naomi nodded.We’ve got her.
“Okay. I’ll be right outside,” Bear said. “You need anything, you say my name. I’ll hear you.”
Greta nodded, and hated herself for sending him back out into the rain when she’d so desperately wanted to see him earlier.
He held her gaze for another second, then pulled the door shut quietly behind him. The latch caught with a soft click.
Through the front window, in the wedge of porch light that fell across the steps, Bear took up his place again with his back to the door and King at his heel. Behind him, the other men stood in silence, arranged across the yard and the driveway in a loose semicircle — Walker with his arms crossed and his hat pulled low, Boone beside him, rifle slung over one shoulder, Hatch leaning against the side of Boone’s truck, Jax and Jonah near the Jeep with their heads down, Anson standing apart with Brambleat his side, the dog’s silver-gray coat catching the porch light. Ghost was at the edge of the property with Cinder, both of them half in shadow.
Eight men and three dogs, facing the dark street as if they could fend off this nightmare for her.
Greta lifted her head a half inch and looked at them all. A year ago, she had Atlas and a Jeep and a flask in her glove box and a sister who might still be alive somewhere, might still come walking up the porch steps one of these days, might still?—
Alice. Was. Dead.
