Page 33 of The Final Cut

His patience almost breaks me. Maybe it should annoy me. It does that too, because grief has turned every feeling into a fist.

“I just got her back, Shiloh.” My voice thins on the words. “I don’t even have her. She hates me half the time and barely tolerates me the other half, and I still just got her back. I can’t let Isabel take her from me again.”

His expression cracks.

“What if she⁠—”

His arms go around me before I finish.

No hesitation. No negotiation. One second I am standing in the wash of range lights with broken china at my feet, and the next I am against his chest, his arms locked around my shoulders and his hand at the back of my head.

“I know, Yank,” he says into my hair. “I know.”

The nickname gets under my ribs.

I grip his shirt. My fingers curl into fabric that smells like sweat, smoke, and Shiloh. The scent should make no sense out here in the marsh after blood and gunfire and hospital lights. It still does. It tells some damaged part of me that I am held. That I can stop bracing for the length of one breath.

“You’ve gotta trust us,” he murmurs.

“I do.”

He gives a quiet sound against my temple.

“I do,” I insist, though the words feel tangled. “I trust you. I trust Ever. I trust Nash most of the time when he’s not being insufferable.”

“Generous.”

“I even trust Deacon in whatever weird way that’s turned into.”

“I guess growth looks different on everyone.”

I almost laugh. It comes out wet and pathetic. Shiloh tightens his arms, then eases back enough to look at me.

The question slips out before I can stop it. “Is Ever mad at me?”

Shiloh’s face changes.

I wish I could pull the words back. They sound young. Smaller than I want to be. It should be obvious. Ever is not leaving me. Ever is not abandoning me. He walked away because if he stayed, we’d fight. And neither of us would win.

I know that. Some old, ugly part of me does not.

People leave. People get dragged away. People bleed out.

Shiloh reads too much of that on my face.

“Oh, no, you don’t” he says, the words immediate and sure. “He is scared to death of losing you while he tries to protect you.”

My chest hurts. “Oh.”

Such a small word for the way it sits in my throat.

A bird calls from somewhere over the water. The range lights hum. Nash is quiet behind us, giving me the mercy of pretending he cannot hear every raw thing being said ten feet away. I’m sure he can. Nash hears everything that might matter later.

Shiloh brushes a loose strand of hair off my cheek with his knuckle. “Go talk to him.”

I look toward the shadows again. “He walked away.”

“Because he loves you enough to avoid saying anything that might make this worse.”