Page 174 of Filled

“That’s the adrenaline leaving. Stay with me. Breathe.”

The police want Dakota at the station for a formal statement. Cruz goes with her, arm locked around her shoulders, his body a wall between her and every camera phone and curious neighbor in the parking lot. Dante stays while the paramedic ties off the last stitch, and his hand never leaves me, and I think that steady weight is the only thing keeping my pieces in one place.

“He should be here.” It’s out of me before I decide to say it, and my voice cracks down the middle. “Eli. He should’ve been part of the circle around her when it got real. Instead he’s alone somewhere, being noble, and he doesn’t even know yet.”

“I know.” Dante helps me off the bumper when the paramedics clear me. “I know.”

We stand in the parking lot, red and blue light washing over the asphalt, neighbors murmuring behind police tape. Two weeks ago we were five people who loved each other, complicated and messy and certain. Now Eli’s gone, Gerald’s in a cage of his own, and I’ve got a line of stitches I’ll wear for the rest of my life.

Dante’s arm comes around me and steers me toward his car.

“Station,” he says. “We wait for Dakota and Cruz. We figure out what’s next as a group.” A beat. “Even if the group’s four right now.”

His voice holds steady, but I can hear the same grief pulling at all of us.

I lean my head against the window during the drive and watch the streetlights strobe past, and every one of them is thatstreetlight, that kiss, that one stolen moment of being visible that somebody caught and honed into a blade. I think about Eli alone in some apartment, still in the dark in every way that matters, exiled by his own sacrifice.

And underneath the grief and the throbbing shoulder and the fear, a small hot coal starts to glow.

Call it determination. Call it stubbornness. It’s the same thing that carried me through my family’s ultimatum, through years of hating what I wanted. We survived tonight. Dakota faced her monster with her own two hands and won. Gerald is finished. And somewhere out there, Eli is convinced his absence is a shield instead of the deep wound it is.

This isn’t over. I won’t let it be over. We fought too hard, and if the world wants to take my family from me, it’s going to have to fight a lot harder than one blackmailer and one broken man with a knife.

The police station rises into view through the windshield. I sit up straight, ignoring the pull of the stitches.

Time to regroup. Time to plan. Time to put the pieces back together.

Starting with bringing Eli home.

41

ELI

The phone rips me out of a sleep so thin it barely counts.

3:04 AM.

Cruz’s name on the screen.

Cruz doesn’t call at 3 AM.

“Cruz.” My voice comes out rough.

“Coach.” His breathing is wrong. Fast and shallow, the way it gets after a fifth round. “Gerald broke into Dakota’s place. He had a knife.”

The room tilts. I’m on my feet before I register standing.

“Is she?—”

“She’s okay. Brady got cut, shoulder, they stitched him up at the scene. He’s fine. Everybody’s fine. Brady and Dakota are getting checked over at the hospital. Gerald’s in custody. Breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, violation of about six other statutes. He’s not walking out anytime soon.”

My keys are already in my hand. I don’t remember picking them up. “Which hospital? Mercy? I can be there in?—”

“Don’t.”

One word, and it lands harder than any punch I’ve ever taken.

“Cruz—”