Page 96 of Dandelions: January

I turn to look at her. My best friend. My soulmate. The person who’s been showing up for me since we were twelve. The only one whoseesme.

“I can’t give up,” I say.

“Then we don’t.”

We sit there for another moment. Two women on a freezing concrete bench making a decision that could get us killed.

To keep investigating. To keep pushing. To be the friends Dahlia didn’t have. To document everything. To survive in the cracks until we can bloom our way through Dom’s concrete empire.

“Okay,” I finally say, standing up. My legs are shaky but they hold. My jaw aches from crying. My hands still tremble.

But I’m standing. That’s something.

“I’ll work with Marcus. I’ll smile and play the role and be the perfect paralegal. And while I’m doing that?—”

“I’ll trace the money.” Alex stands too. “The club ownership. The shell companies. All of it. We’ll build this case from both sides.”

“Together.”

“Always together.” She pauses. “Although for the record, when we eventually take this to the police and they ask how we got the evidence, we’re going to need a very creative explanation.”

“We fell ass-backward into a murder investigation while day-drinking probably won’t fly.”

“No. But it’s accurate.” She holds out her pinky. “Ready to commit felonies for a dead woman we never met?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds insane.”

“That’s because it is insane.” Her pinky doesn’t waver. “But we’re doing it anyway.”

I stare at it. That twelve-year-old promise gesture that’s gotten us through everything. Playground wishes. High school drama. College heartbreak. And now this.

“Paréa,” she says quietly. “Through everything.”

I link my pinky with hers. “Through everything.”

We stand there in the freezing courtyard, pinky promise locked between us like a blood oath. This is what female friendship looks like when the system fails—two women making promises in the cold because no one else will fight for the women who disappear.

“Dandelions,” I say.

“Dandelions,” she agrees. Then squeezes my pinky so hard it almost hurts. “And dandelions are a lot harder to kill than people think.”