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The thing was, I had a solid support system. I had my sisters. An entire Avery Avalanche who closed around me the second I started listing.

Who did Zarek have?

Yeah, he had friends. Good ones. But most of them were husbands or brothers or cousins of my sisters and friends. The social web of Jasper Creek often felt like it was woven around my family. He’d slotted into it because of me.

Take me out, and what did he have?

Michael. Fletcher. The guys at the station. Cappy. They all cared. But they weren’t the people he called in the middle of the night. I was.

I closed my eyes. “He needs help,” I whispered.

“Then maybe you two should talk,” Zoe said. “Again. With less martyrdom and more honesty. On both sides.”

“I can’t fix him,” I said, because if I didn’t say it out loud, I was going to forget. “He has to rescue himself.”

“I’m not asking you to fix him,” she said. “I’m asking you not to pretend you don’t care if he sets himself on fire.”

That landed.

Because I did care. Deeply. Stupidly. To the bone.

A memory rose, uninvited. Zarek driving from Dallas to Jasper Creek. Breaking into my house and pulling back the covers that I’d been hiding under. He’d taken one look around my house. The broken glass, my blood-covered foot, my vacant gaze, and damn near kidnapped me to Dallas.

Days later, he’d sat on the floor with me and said, “You need more help than I can give. Let’s find you a counselor who knows how to climb into this kind of dark with you.”

He’d put his life on hold to bring me back to the land of the living.

How did I look at that history and decide my hands were clean now?

“Chloe?” Zoe said again.

My eyes burned. “I have a deadline,” I said, because my brain is nothing if not annoying. “Edith is already breathing down my neck.”

“Okay, wild segue,” Zoe said. “But sure, I’ll buy that.” Her voice oozed sarcasm.

“Seris and Kael are stuck,” I said, ignoring her tone. “They’re…us. And I don’t know how to end their story without knowing if we have one.”

“You are such a dork. I know that makes sense to you, but you’re way over my head.”

I snorted out a laugh.

She was quiet for a beat. “I love you,” she said finally. “Whatever you decide.”

“I love you too,” I whispered.

We hung up.

The apartment felt too small for my thoughts. The walls were closing in, crowding me with memories and possibilities.

I stared at my drawing table. Seris and Kael stared back from half-finished pages. In the last spread, Seris stood on a rooftop watching Kael walk into a fight she couldn’t follow him into. Her eyes were all wild ink and unspoken words.

“I hope you have answers,” I told her. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”

I sat down, picked up my pen, and started to draw.

Not the ending. Not yet.

But the conversation they needed to have.