No resistance this time, his hands fell away from me, deliberately, as if he were being careful not to make it seem like a loss.
Oddly, it felt like one anyway.
The warmth disappeared the second I moved, and I hated how acutely I registered it; my body tracked the exact moment his hands left my skin and felt the absence like something important had been taken away.
I stood; bad idea.
My legs buckled slightly, weak and shaky beneath me, not just from hours on a couch that was never meant for sleeping, but from everything. The adrenaline crash. The crying, the grief that had emptied me and left nothing behind but trembling hands and body.
Heat crept up my neck again, involuntary and immediate.
The way he’d looked at me, the way his fingers had felt, how my body had responded to him like it had been looking for that—for years—and I’d never known it.
My pulse kicked up at the thought, and I shut it down. Hard.
Not now, I told myself as I started pacing back and forth across the office carpet. My hands moved while I talked—gesturing, fidgeting, needing somewhere to put the energy that was building inside me with no outlet.
“This is insane,” I muttered, raking a hand through my hair. “How long can we actually stay here? I mean—logistically, we’re in a decent position. Food for days, maybe weeks if we’re careful. Water’s not an issue; we have the generators, the hurricane shutters. We’re basically locked inside a vault.”
I gestured vaguely at the surrounding walls.
“But what if they get in? What if the generators fail? What if the food runs out faster than we think? What if—”
“Sloane.”
His voice cut through the spiral.
I kept pacing.
“What if this isn’t just local? What if it’s everywhere? What if the military levels the whole area? What if no one’s coming? What if—”
“Sloane.”
His voice was louder this time.
I stopped mid-stride and turned toward him.
He was still sitting on the couch, watching me with an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on his face, not irritation, but concern.
“Stop spiraling,”he said quietly.
I opened my mouth to argue—to tell him this wasn’t spiraling, this was reality, this was rational thinking based on what we’d seen with our own eyes hours ago—but he spoke first.
“You’re thinking ten steps ahead of something we don’t even understand yet.”
I exhaled through my nose. “I watched someone get torn apart, Callan. I think spiraling is pretty fucking fair.”
His jaw tensed, but he didn’t argue.
He stood slowly instead and walked toward me, not crowding me or reaching for me, but closing the distance enough that I knew he was there—his presence, his steadiness, the calm that radiated off him—it made me want to lean into it.
“We’re in the strongest structure within a five-block radius,” he said evenly. “Reinforced exterior. Steel shutters rated for Category 5 storms. Controlled access at every entry point. We’ve got food, water, and backup power that will run for weeks.”
He held my gaze. “That’s not nothing.”
My chest rose and fell too fast; my heartbeat felt like it was in my throat.
“I can’t calm down,” I admitted.