Page 134 of No Good Fight

Afterward, he shifts us carefully, cleans me up with a warm cloth from the bathroom, gets me water, checks my pupils in the lamplight while I complain weakly.

“You’re ruining the afterglow of orgasms with medical surveillance.” My voice is scratchy, and without the bliss of sex, I don’t want to say anything else.

But my words hit their mark, and almost make him smile. Almost. Then he climbs into bed beside me and pulls me against his chest with the kind of exhausted tenderness that assumes morning is coming.

I’m the only one who knows different.

I wait for his breathing to change.

It takes longer than I expect and not long enough at the same time. Ryder is beyond tired, hitting exhaustion in a way I’ve never seen in him. Now that the adrenaline has faded, that bone deep exhaustion is all that’s left behind after the grief, smoke, fear, and sex have burned through the body. Even then, he fights it. His hand rests over my hip, loose but present, and every few minutes his fingers twitch like he is checking that I am still there.

I let him, because these last stolen moments are all I’ll have left.

When he finally sleeps, I stay still for another ten minutes, counting the space between his breaths while rain taps against the window until I don’t have a choice anymore. Then I slide out from under his arm one inch at a time. He shifts, and I freeze with my hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my palm.

But that’s it. He doesn’t move again.

I dress in the dark. Soft pants. Hoodie sleeve pulled down over the hospital bracelet. Sneakers in my hand until I reach the hallway. I turn my phone’s screen timeout off the way I do when I’m transcribing interviews, open Preston’s messages, and set it on the nightstand beside Ryder where the light from the screen touches his hand.

No phone, Preston said. Fine. I won’t bring one.

But I will leave Ryder a way to find me. A way for him to know immediately what’s happening, where, and why I had to go.

He’ll understand. He’ll find my body. He’ll make sure Preston is held accountable.

Downstairs, the house glows with all the careful protection he built. The monitors watch empty doors and white-lit grass. I take the spare truck key from the kitchen bowl because my car is not here, then open the security app on the tablet with fingers that shake badly enough to miss buttons the first time. Driveway alerts, snoozed for thirty minutes. Garage Goblin, snoozed. Back Door Drama, snoozed. I do not turn the system off. I do not erase myself. I only buy myself time to leave before Ryder realizes I”m gone.

At the garage door, I pause with my hand on the knob and look back at Home Base.

The living room is still. The blanket Mom wrapped around me lies folded over the couch arm inside. The discharge papers sit under Dad’s highlighter. One of Nia’s crackers is abandoned on the counter. Everything about the house begs me to stay.

Mrs. Vance is somewhere in the dark because she didn’t turn her back on me. And that’s the only reason I need to go.

I slip into the garage, ease the door shut behind me, and put on my shoes with one hand against the wall. The truck unlocks with a soft flash I hate more than a shout. I climb inside, bite down against the pain in my head, and start the engine without turning on the headlights until I have rolled halfway down the driveway.

The house disappears behind me, bright and useless in the rain. My phone is upstairs beside Ryder, Preston’s messages open on the screen, and the man I love is asleep in the bed I just left.

He’ll get over losing me. They all will.

27

RYDER

I wake with my hand reaching for Alex before I know why.

My palm slides over the place where her hip should be and finds sheets that don’t have a hint of her warmth. For a few seconds, exhaustion keeps my brain from catching up with my body. I remember her curled against me after I checked her pupils for the third time, complaining that medical surveillance was ruining what she called a perfectly good afterglow. I remember her voice against my mouth, telling me she loved me until the words stopped sounding impossible and started sounding like something I should get to hear for the rest of my life.

The bathroom door is open. There’s no light beneath it, no water running, and I can’t hear her moving anywhere in the room.

“Alex?”

I’m sitting up before I finish saying her name. The movement sends the blanket down around my waist, and that’s when I see her phone on the nightstand beside my hand.

Her phone should be on her side of the bed.

The screen is still illuminated and I can see an open text thread. There’s no lock screen to get through. No notification I have to touch. She left the conversation sitting there where I couldn’t miss it.

My feet hit the floor.