Page 181 of Surviving Each Other
And Finn. Alive.
“Unbelievable,” Lock said, shaking his head. “All the Ward siblings back in one room. I’d almost forgotten how loud you are.”
Callan moved to the opposite side of the frame, his posture mirroring Lock’s.
When he spoke, his voice held something else. Something that cut through the warmth in the room like a cold draft through an open window.
“Almost,” he said.
One word.
It hung in the air.
Heavy. Sharp.
It didn’t need explaining.
Almost all the Ward siblings.
Brenna.
She looked at Finn. The arm around her waist didn’t move—it just went rigid. His jaw set. The openness in his eyes, which had been startling in its rarity, pulled back from the edges inward, the way a tide withdraws before something larger arrives.
The question Callan had raised settled in the air. Libby looked at Finn, saw the hard set of his jaw and the way his gaze went distant, staring at something only he could see. The weight of it pressed on her: the terrifying hope that one more person was still fighting their way here, measured against the crushing silence from the mainland that felt more and more like the only answer they would ever get.
