The crisis isn’t over. It has only transformed into something new. And whatever happens next will bind or break us permanently.
FORTY-THREE
LANI
The sirens intrudebefore the shock fully settles.
By the time the flashing blue lights spill through the windows, I am still kneeling in front of Sol, my hands pressed against his side, feeling the warmth of his blood seeping between my fingers. The guys helped move him to the sofa in the lounge but I can’t seem to leave his side. He’s so pale.
The house smells like gunpowder and copper and fear.
My fear.
Fear for Sol. For his wounds and for what might happen to us all now that there’s a dead man in my grandmother’s house. I don’t know what happened. One minute my father was leaving, and the next I’m drowning in silence and blood.
My father’s body lies on the wooden floorboards of the hallway several feet away, covered now with a sheet one of the guys grabbed from the airing cupboard and threw over him so that I’d stop staring and shaking.
Finn steps forward the moment the police cross the threshold.
His posture shifts subtly – not defensive, not aggressive, but composed in a way that suggests control rather than chaos. He identifies himself calmly. He states what happened clearly: armed entry, syringe, threat to life, weapon discharged first. He names witnesses. He names evidence.
No embellishment.
No hesitation.
The officers listen differently once they recognise him.
One of them kneels beside the sofa to speak to Sol.
“Sir, you’ve been shot. We need to transport you to the hospital for treatment.”
“I’m not going,” Sol replies evenly. His voice is somehow steady, but I feel the strain in it through the bond.
That’s new.
I file it away for later.
“You don’t have a choice,” the officer insists.
“Yes, I do.” He doesn’t look at them when he says it. He looks at me as he clambers to his feet, wincing and grimacing. A sheen of sweat immediately breaks out on his forehead and I scramble up to follow him.
My pulse is erratic now – not only from what just happened, but from the way something deeper is shifting beneath my skin. The fear is fading. Something hotter is replacing it.
The officer tries again. “You could have internal bleeding.”
“If I leave,” Sol says, still watching me carefully, “shedestabilises.”
The word makes the officer blink.
“That’s not how?—”
“It is,” Sol cuts in quietly.
Kai steps closer to his other side, hands hovering like he’s ready to catch him if he sways. Koa stands just behind me, a wall of heat and steadiness. Finn finishes giving his statement and moves toward us.
“He’s not going to a hospital,” Finn says calmly to the officer. “A private physician is already en route.”
“That’s not protocol?—”