Worse.
Alone.
Something inside my chest snaps – not loud, not dramatic. Just a clean, sharp break. The kind that leaves no room for debate.
I grab my keys.
If Finn can’t be there, then she shouldn’t be on her own.
And if something’s wrong – really wrong – I’m not letting her ride it out with my idiot twin brothers who don’t know what to look out for.
I don’t know what’s happening to her.
But I know one thing with brutal clarity: I’m not leaving her unprotected while Finn’s gone.
TWENTY-TWO
SOL
I don’t knock.
I do plan to – but the sound of her coughing on the other side of the door stops me cold.
It’s wet. Deep. Wrong. The kind that comes from the chest, not the throat. The kind that rattles.
I open the door.
She’s on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket like it’s the only thing holding her together, knees drawn up tight, shoulders hitching as she tries to swallow another cough into the sleeve of her hoodie. Her hair hangs lank around her face, damp with sweat, clinging to her temples. Her skin looks dull. Too pale. Her eyes are glassy when they flick up to me, startled.
“Oh. Sol.” Her voice is wrecked. Sandpaper-soft. Strained.
Something ugly twists in my chest. “You should be in bed,” I say, harsher than I intended.
She frowns like I’ve just insulted her, dragging the blanket tighter around herself. “I was. I just…needed water.”
The room tells a different story. Half-empty mugs are scattered on every surface. There’s a bowl of grapes shrivellingat the edges. Toast gone cold, barely touched, is balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa. The air is stale with old air and sweat – and underneath it, something sharp andoffthat makes my instincts itch even though I can’t place why.
“How long?” I ask.
She shrugs too fast, eyes skittering away. “Couple of days. It’s nothing.”
Bullshit.
I step closer. She tracks me with her eyes, tense, like she’s bracing for an argument she’s already exhausted by. I crouch in front of her and take her wrist before she can pull away.
Her pulse stutters under my fingers. Her skin is hot. Way too fucking hot.
I drop her hand immediately, jaw tightening.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
Her breath catches. Just a hitch but it’s enough.
“I don’t need to,” she says quickly.
“That wasn’t the question.”
She looks away. Her hair slips forward with the movement, curtain-thick and damp, hiding the curve of her neck where it meets her shoulder. My eyes snag there anyway, instinctively scanning. There’s nothing I can clearly see. Just flushed skin. Heat. The bulk of her hoodie swallowing her frame.