“We’ve got food, water. The cafeteria supply room is stocked for a full week of visitors—that’s enough for two people for a long time. We have generators and reinforced doors designed to hold in case of hurricane evacuation. We know this place; this is the safest place for us right now.”
I paused.
She studied my face. Her eyes moved across it slowly, searching for something—certainty, perhaps, confidence—some sign that I actually believed what I was saying and wasn’t just holding it together for her benefit.
“Do you really think we can survive this?” sheasked quietly.
I held her gaze, didn’t flinch.
“I think,” I said carefully, “this is the best place we’ve got.”
It wasn’t a yes. She knew that. I knew that. But it was honest, and right now honest was the only thing I had to give her.
Her shoulders sagged, just a slow release, simply nothing left to fuel it. She leaned back into the couch, her head tipping against the cushion, her eyes lifting to the ceiling.
She stared up at it for a long time.
The ventilation system blew faintly and softly above us. Somewhere deeper in the building, a pump cycled on, ran for thirty seconds, and cycled off again.
After a long moment, she said it.
Quietly, almost to herself, as if she were testing whether she could say the words out loud and survive them.
“I don’t think Peter made it.”
The words hung in the air between us.
I didn’t tell her that she didn’t know that. Didn’t say perhaps he got out, or maybe he found somewhere safe, or any of the things people say when they want to make someone feel better.
I’d seen what was out there; she’d seen what was out there.
We both knew.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Two words. Not enough. Not nearly enough. But they were real, and I meant them.
She closed her eyes, her chin dipped slightly, breath hitched once—a small, involuntary sound, barely audible—and then again. Her lips pressed together hard, and her jaw tightened, and I watched her try to hold it in. The way she’d held things in for the entire six years I’d known her,keeping herself locked down tight, never letting anyone see the real Sloane. Fuck, I honestly didn’t even know she had a boyfriend.
Her face crumpled; there was no sobbing, no wailing, no sound at all, just her finally giving up the fight, tears spilling from beneath closed lids and running down her cheeks in steady, silent streams.
I sat there. I didn’t move. I didn’t look away.
I just stayed.
Thirteen
Callan
Iwitnessed her disintegration.
At first, she tried to stay quiet as her shoulders shook. Her fingers pressed hard against her eyes, as if she could physically force it all back down if she pushed hard enough.
They came anyway, slow at first. Tears, and her breathing kept catching, hitching.
A sound escaped her—small and involuntary—her breath came in jagged, uneven pulls, each one shorter than the last.
I sat there; every instinct I had told me to stay where I was, keep my distance. Let her have her space; that’s what made sense.