The room settled into quiet again—the low hum of fluorescent lights, the soft whoosh of the air vent, the steady rhythm of the monitor.
Tessa sat up a little straighter, tucking her legs under the blanket. Scout, moving on instinct, tried to push himself up to stand—but she reached out fast.
“Don’t.” Her voice cracked. “Scout, don’t get up. Please.”
He sank back into the chair reluctantly. “I’m fine.”
“You’re shot.”
“You’re drugged.”
Their eyes held.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Tessa hesitated, fingers curling into the blanket.
“Scout…” She swallowed. “My cat—Tallulah. I know it sounds stupid, but?—”
“It’s not stupid,” he said immediately.
She looked up, eyes going wide.
“She’s safe,” he went on, softer now. “Kayla’s got her. I went back to the cabin. Found her hiding under the sofa, mad as hell. Wouldn’t leave her behind.”
Tessa let out a breath that trembled on the way out.
“You did?” Her eyes filled instantly.
“Of course I did.”
She pressed a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking as relief washed through her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You have no idea what that means to me.”
Scout leaned forward as much as his shoulder allowed. The IV line tugged gently; the inside of his forearm still stained from surgery prep.“I think I do.”
Tessa nodded, wiping at her eyes. Then, quieter:
“Scout, I read things in that room. Things Sara wrote in her journal when she was held there. I thought?—”
His head snapped up. “Tess. Stop.”
But she kept going—the words trembling out, raw but steady like the agent she was.
“She wrote about you. How she loved you. How she wished you felt the same. And he—” Her voice faltered. “He said you loved her. That I was nothing but a complication—that you’d always go back to her.”
Her fingers twisted in the blanket, knuckles white.
“And sitting in that room, with nothing but his voice and those pages…” She swallowed. “I had a lot of time to think about every choice I’d made. About you. About her. And when I thought you were dead on that roof, I—” A tear slipped.“I thought I’d wrecked everything you had with her.”
Scout’s whole body went still.
He closed his eyes for a second.
When he opened them again, something raw had slipped through the cracks.
“Do you really think,” he said quietly, voice rough in a way it hadn’t been all day, “that I would bleed out in Sinclair’s yard for confusion?”
“Tessa,” he said, firmly. “Sara is family to me. She always hasbeen. I trained her. Protected her. I’m proud of her. And I will always care about her.”
