I let out a long breath and spread my hands.
“Long story,” I said.
I glanced back at Sloane, Jeff, and Ethan. Three people who’d been strangers two weeks ago. Who’d become something else entirely since then.
Lock stared at me for another long second, and the rifle lowered the rest of the way, the barrel pointing at the ground.
“Well, shit,” he said.
He walked forward. Slow at first. Then faster.
“Who knew it would take the walking dead to get us bothon Finn’s island together,” he said.
A grin spread across my face despite everything. Despite the exhaustion and the fear and the miles of dark water behind us and the world that would never go back to what it had been.
“Missed you too, brother.”
“You never told me you had two brothers.”
Sloane’s voice came quietly beside me as we sat on the wide wooden porch of the main cabin. The boards creaked under our weight, still warm from the last of the sun.
Lock had disappeared inside a few minutes ago to grab a medical kit for my ankle. Jeff and Ethan were down at the dock tying the Mariner off properly for the night.
I leaned back against one of the porch posts, stretching my legs out carefully.
“I have two brothers and two sisters,” I said.
Sloane turned her head toward me.
“Five of you?”
“Yeah.”
She let out a low whistle.
“That explains a lot.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have strong middle-child energy.”
I snorted.
“I’m not the middle.”
“Close enough.”
I shook my head, but a small smile crept in despite myself.
“The youngest is Fiona. She’s twenty-four now, a doctor up in Boston—or she had been before everything.”
Sloane nodded slightly; neither of us said the obvious.
“Then there’s Finn.”
“Then Brenna,” I continued. “Younger than me by five years. Nurse. Always the responsible one. Still in our hometown—Portland.”