Page 18 of The Final Cut

“She didn’t get into his room.”

His jaw flexes. “Only because Deacon saw the marker.”

“Good. Then keep watching.”

Shiloh sets the coffee on a small table near the wall and steps into my line of sight. He looks wrecked in a careful way, like he has locked most of it down because there is not enough room for his grief and mine.

“Sweetheart,” he says, “we can’t treat this like she was curious.”

“I am not treating anything like anything. I’m staying with Cal.”

Nash’s voice comes in, low and final. “No.”

The word hits the hallway and stays there.

My chest tightens. “Do not say that to me.”

“I will when it is the answer.”

I stare at him. Every cell in my body strains toward the ICU door behind me. Cal is on the other side of it, breathing because a machine is telling his lungs how, and they want me to walk away. They want me to leave him behind a different set of doors and call that survival.

My hands start to shake. I hide them in the sweatshirt sleeves.

“You can’t make me leave.”

Nash holds my gaze. “I can.”

The honesty of it steals my breath.

Shiloh turns his head. “Nash.”

“I could,” Nash says, still looking at me. “But I won’t. You choose with the truth in front of you.”

I laugh once. It sounds nothing like laughing. “That’s generous.”

“It is the least cruel option left.”

The hallway goes quiet around us. A nurse passes with a tray and pretends very hard not to listen. Somewhere down the corridor, a machine chimes three soft notes. No alarm. Nothing urgent. My body still reacts as if the sound belongs to Cal.

Ever steps closer. “They know you’re here. They know Cal is alive. If you stay in a public waiting room, they can force us to defend too many points. Elevators. Stairs. Staff access. Ambulance bay. Supply corridors. Visitor bathrooms. Every badge becomes a question.”

“You can lock it down.”

“Some of it. I can’t defend all of it.”

That answer frightens me because Ever hates admitting limits.

Deacon speaks from the end of the hall. “Isabel will use him.”

I look at him. His face is still, but something bitter lives underneath it. He knows her better than anyone here. He knows the shape of her cruelty before she has to prove it.

“She will make you choose badly,” he says. “Cal is the bait she already bloodied. She will not waste that.”

The hallway tilts a little. I brace a hand against the wall.

Shiloh moves then. He does not ask. He comes close and wraps his arms around me, firm enough to hold, gentle enough to let me break without making it a spectacle. My face turns into his chest. His shirt smells like smoke, sweat and the clean paper bag from the gift shop.

“I hate this,” I say into him.