Page 76 of No Good Fight

“Nothing,” she says. “She noticed before she sat down.”

His gaze moves to the desk, and his jaw locks. “Remy needs to see it.”

“I already called him,” Marcy says. “When she was calling at you.”

Ryder looks at her then.

She lifts her eyebrows. “I am occasionally useful in a crisis.”

“More than occasionally,” I say, because I need my voice to work.

Marcy’s eyes soften, but she doesn’t come closer.

Ryder does. One step. Then he stops again, torn between reaching for me and giving me the space I literally told him that I needed. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m furious.” I try to cover my real feelings.

“That too.”

“Don’t be accurate right now.” My voice cracks, and I hate it. “It’s obnoxious.”

“I know.”

Remy arrives two minutes later with rain on his shoulders and gloves already on his hands. Parker definitely told him everything from Lucy’s, because when he looks at me, his face has none of his usual teasing.

“Alex,” he says gently. “I’m going to take pictures first. Then I’ll move the keyboard. You don’t have to watch if it’s something you may be triggered by.”

I laugh once, thin and ugly. “I’m pretty sure I do.”

Ryder’s hand flexes at his side, but he doesn’t argue.

Remy photographs the desk from every angle. The pen cup. The drawer. The keyboard. The little strip of paper beneath it. Then he lifts the keyboard carefully, and the folded article opens enough for the headline to show.

I know that headline.

I wrote it two years ago.

A feature about domestic-violence survivors and the first year after leaving. The relief. The pain. The restructuring and survival of new habits.

Black marker cuts across the middle in thick, ugly letters.

YOU WERE NEVER ONE OF THEM.

The office disappears as my vision blurs at the edges.

For a second, I’m back at the tiny kitchen table in Preston’s apartment, writing about women who had packed bags in secret and whispered to advocates from grocery-store bathrooms. I remember the cursor blinking after the final sentence. I remember Preston texting that dinner better be ready when he got home. I remember saving the document and wondering what kind of hypocrite writes about escape while checking the time for the man she’s afraid to disappoint.

My knees unlock.

Ryder catches my sleeve, not my wrist. Even now, he’s being careful so that he doesn’t cause more harm. God. How is he so perfect?

“Here,” he says, low and close. “Stay here.”

I stare at the article.

“He picked that one on purpose,” I whisper.

“I know.”