“Lola.” Ryan again. “Look at me.”
I drag my panicked gaze to him. His face is exactly what it always is. Calm. Present. Not afraid. Looking at me like he has already made a decision and is waiting for me to catch up to it.
“We handle this,” he says.
“You don’t—” My voice comes out different than I want. “You don’t know what this is.”
“No. But you’re going to tell us. Right now.” His eyes hold mine. “And then we handle it.”
The sirens are close.
The blue and red light is painting the tree line.
I look at Ryan. At Archer’s hand on my arm. At Jack,who has gone to absolute stillness and is watching me with eyes that are not afraid of whatever I’m about to say. At Tristan, behind me, warm and solid.
The town I wanted to stay in.
The words I’ve been holding alone for two weeks, heavy and private, are right there on the tip of my tongue. I just don’t know if I’m brave enough to release them.
Chapter 21
Jack
This is what most people misunderstand about me: They see the chaos and they think that’s all there is. The jokes, the mischief, the general momentum toward whatever’s interesting.
They see it and they thinkJack is light,which is true in the way that water is light. Water is also the thing that wears through stone. It’s the thing that finds every crack. It’s the thing that, when it has somewhere to go, goes there with everything it has.
I am also that.
I don’t show it often because the light version works better in most situations, and because the other version makes people uncomfortable in ways the playful version doesn’t. So I keep it available and I don’t advertise it.
The sirens bring it out.
I hear them before the light hits the trees. Not because I have better ears. Because I’ve been in enough situations in a life that was more complicated than Sweetwater Valley knows about, to recognize the sound of law enforcement response while it’s still in the approach. Single siren is traffic. Two sirens are different.
This is a sweep.
I go still.
Not physically. I’m still standing at the pier rail, still in the same position I was in thirty seconds ago when Lola was looking at the water with that expression she gets when she’s thinking something she hasn’t given herself permission to think yet. Physically I am the same.
But internally the gear changes.
I feel it in the pack bond first. Ryan locking in, immediate and total, the frequency of his focus that means he’s assessed and is responding. Archer going to heightened alertness, which I feel as a kind of sharpening, the bond pulling tight. Tristan steady, which is what Tristan is, but with a layer of attention underneath the steadiness that has come online fast.
And Lola.
I’ve been feeling Lola in the partial bond all week. So many emotions that it’s hard to put my hand on one. Her presence legible in a way that wasn’t there on day one. Right now, what I feel from her direction isnot only a bond signal. It’s reading her too. Two weeks of paying close attention.
She’s terrified. She’s not showing it. She’s frozen and her face is controlled. Standing three feet from her I can see what’s underneath the control. This is her emergency power mode.
Ryan says her name. Twice, with the weight that meansI need you present and I need you now.
She looks at him.
And then Ryan says, “You’re going to tell us, right now.”
I watch her face as she calculates her options. She stands at the edge of trusting us and doesn’t know whether to cross it. “I was framed,” she blurts out.
