“And you survived.”
I pulled back just enough to make her look at me.
“You listen to me real carefully, Flick.”
Her breathing shook hard.
Tears everywhere.
Beautiful and broken and still trying to carry everybody else’s pain.
“You are not guilty because monsters exist.”
Emotion cracked across her face violently.
“But she was reaching for me?—”
“And you stayed.”
The room went dead silent again.
Because everybody understood what I meant.
She stayed.
Even terrified.
Even hunted.
Even after everything?—
Flick crawled toward someone dying because she couldn’t leave them alone.
Jesus Christ.
How could anybody not love this woman?
My thumb brushed beneath her tears carefully.
“That girl didn’t die alone,” I whispered softly.
Flick broke completely after that.
A sob tore out of her hard enough it nearly dropped me to my knees with her.
Behind us, Vaughn muttered quietly:
“She was collateral damage.”
Wrong.
Thing.
To.
Say.
I felt the entire room shift.
