Page 99 of The Final Cut

I feel it before I see it, a low vibration moving through the dock, through the walls, through the floor beneath my bare feet. Ever has the perimeter feeds up across every screen in the war room, the cabin lit in strange slices of security light while the marsh beyond the glass stays black and wet. Rain drags thin silver lines down the monitors. For a second, all I can see is motion—the boat cutting toward the dock, Nash standing at the bow, Deacon at the rear, another shape between them wrapped in a coat too large for her body.

Delia.

I am out of the chair before Ever says my name.

He catches my arm at the door, firm enough to stop me, and I turn on him with every raw piece of me already in my throat. His face is calm, but his eyes are on the screen, tracking the dock, the water, the trees. He wants to open the door as badly as I do. That is the only reason I manage not to snarl at him.

“Code first,” he says.

“They’re right there.”

“They enter the code first.”

The words are quiet, and the quiet does what yelling would not. It holds me in place long enough for Nash to step off the boat and enter the code. Ever verifies it, answers through the comm, and releases me. I am moving before he finishes telling them the house is clear.

The back hall feels longer than it should. Every locked door, every reinforced seam, every silent camera watching from the ceiling reminds me that this place was built to keep people out and keep me in. I know why. I know Isabel would love nothing more than for me to run into the open like a girl with no sense of survival. I know staying here was part of the rescue.

Knowing doesn’t make it easier to stand on the right side of the door while my sister comes through it bleeding.

The lock disengages. Rain-heavy air pushes inside ahead of them, carrying the smell of river mud, cold metal, and blood. Nash enters first with his weapon low and his eyes sweeping the hall before they settle on me. He is wet through the shoulders, hard-faced, controlled in that terrifying way that means he is holding everything together by will alone. Deacon follows him, one hand pressed to his side beneath his coat.

Then Delia steps inside.

For one suspended second, I cannot move.

She looks smaller than she did at the gala. Smaller than she did beside the pool. The dark coat hangs from her shoulders, and wet hair clings to her cheeks. Her face is pale, her mouth tight, her posture too straight for the way she is favoring one leg. One hand is curled against her chest. The other hangs at her side, wrapped in blood-streaked gauze that someone must have pressed there in the van. Beneath the hem of the coat, one bare foot peeks out, scraped and dirty, and there is blood at both knees.

My body reaches for her before my mind gives permission.

Delia flinches. It is tiny—a breath. A tightening around the eyes. The smallest recoil from touch.

But I stop with my hands halfway lifted.

“Don’t,” she says.

The word is rough and immediate, pulled out of her before she can dress it in cruelty. That makes it hurt more, somehow. I lower my hands because she asked me to, and because for the first time since she came back into my life, I understand that reaching for her can be another kind of taking.

“Okay,” I say.

Her gaze flicks to mine, wariness reflected in her eyes. She didn’t expect me to stop.

Nash closes the door behind them. Locks slide back into place, one after another, the sound clean and final in the hall. “Kitchen,” he says. “Everyone sits where I can see them.”

Delia’s mouth tightens like she wants to argue on principle, but she moves without speaking. The fact that she saves her energy frightens me almost as much as the blood.

I follow them into the kitchen, watching the hitch in her walk, the tension through Deacon’s jaw, the way Nash stays close without crowding either of them. Ever moves past us to retrieve the medical kit from the concealed cabinet near the pantry. The room fills with wet clothing, controlled breathing, and all the words no one knows how to say.

Then I see Delia’s wrists clearly.

Red bead marks ring both of them. Deep, angry impressions pressed into the skin. There are raw places where something cut or rubbed too hard, and beneath the torn edge of her dress, her knees are scraped bloody with bits of white stone clinging to the wounds.

I go cold.

My thumb finds the rubber bands on my wrist and snaps one before I realize I have moved. Pain flashes against my skin. It does nothing useful, so I snap it again.

Delia sees me looking at her knees.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she says.