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“I can’t believe we're here again. I was hoping to never come back again.”

Damon looks down at me, the piercing in his eyebrow catching the sunlight as we make our way toward the hospital entrance. The tattoo on his face gives him an intimidating edge, something that probably makes strangers and enemies think twice before approaching him, but not me. For me, he’s my protector. My safe place. The person who makes me feel like I can breathe when everything around me is closing in.

“I hear that,” he says, his fingers brushing absently over the scar at his throat. “And even if it seemed true at one point, it sure as fuck isn’t now. You’ve got me, Hunter, and Timothy. You’ve got the entire House of Night, and I’m pretty sure you’ve won over all the frats when you took down Amber.”

I squeeze his hand, letting the warmth of his palm ground me as we cross through the sliding glass doors.

My pulse quickens with the first step into the hospital. I have been here too many times, in too many different capacities. I have been a patient lying beneath fluorescent lights, a woman waking up from a nightmare she couldn't remember, a terrified wife sitting beside a bed, and now I am walking through these doors as something else entirely. I don't know if there is a word for what I am to the people waiting upstairs. Maybe there doesn't need to be. I only know that I woke up this morning with the need to be here.

Damon's fingers remain entwined with mine as we cross the lobby, ride the elevator, and make our way onto the ICU floor. He doesn't let go once, and even if he tried, I wouldn’t let him. There is something reassuring about the constant pressure of his hand, a quiet reminder that whatever waits for me in these hallways, I don't have to face it alone.

Before we even step out of the elevator, a guy comes barging in, pushing into the back corner. He’s wearing a black hoodie under a black leather jacket. Damon pulls me out of the elevator quickly. I look over my shoulder and I catch a glimpse of his face, the first thing I notice are the sharp lines of his cheekbones. The second? The letters WEST tattooed over his knuckles.

The door slides shut, but not before our eyes meet, and there’s no mistaking the anger and pain staring back at me.

“Who was that?” I ask, taking quick steps to catch up to Damon’s long strides.

“Eugene Warren,” he says. “Stella’s boyfriend or something.”

I don’t get a chance to ask more because we spot Agent Knight sitting in one of the chairs along the hallway when we arrive, and Augustine is curled against his side with her head resting on his shoulder. He nudges her gently when he spots us, and she lifts her head as Knight slowly gets to his feet. He and Damon shake hands, their exchange brief but familiar; whatever hostility they had between them has faded over the last few days. I guess that’s what happens when you put aside your differences to fight a bigger enemy.

Augustine looks at me with red-rimmed eyes. She doesn't make any effort to hide the way she's staring, and I don't blame her. I imagine I look different to her now, too: we’re both survivors.

“How is she?” Damon asks, gesturing toward the ICU room where Stella has been since her rescue in the tunnels.

“It’s hard to tell. When we found her, she was weak and disoriented–barely conscious. She was severely dehydrated and malnourished,” Knight says. His arm slips around Augustine's waist, pulling her closer as if he needs the physical reassurance of having her beside him. “If we hadn’t found her when we did, I don’t know if she would have made it much longer.”

The news hits hard and a lump forms in my throat.

“They’ll continue to do testing to make sure there’s no other long-term damage, but right now she’s sedated so that she can rest.”

“Every time she wakes up, she starts screaming,” Augustine says quietly.

I look toward the closed ICU door, imagining Stella on the other side, trapped somewhere between sleep and the memories that will eventually come rushing back. I know what it is like to wake up and have your body remember something your mind refuses to explain. Covered in bruises and scars you have no memory of getting, or what it is like to be terrified of a room you cannot remember being in, to feel something terrible sitting just beyond the edge of your consciousness.

“Give us a second, okay?” Damon says, squeezing my hand. He gestures for Knight to follow him farther down the hallway to speak privately, leaving Augustine and me together.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I just have to say that. I’m so sorry.”

Her eyebrows pull together. “For what?”

“For taking so long.” My throat tightens around the words. “To remember. To figure out where they were keeping Stella and the other girls. If I had remembered sooner, maybe⁠—”

“No.” She cuts me off so quickly that I stop. She shakes her head, her expression firm despite the exhaustion written across her face. “Don't do that to yourself, Arianette. None of this is your fault.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m not sure it’s fair.”

“I spent one night down there, Arianette,” she continues, her voice softer now. “I already wish I didn't have to remember any of it. I can't imagine what it must have been like for you to carry it around for months without even knowing why you were afraid.” She swallows, glancing toward Stella's room. “I hope she doesn't remember either.”

“So do I.”

For a moment, neither of us says anything. There isn't much comfort to offer someone after something like this. There are no perfect words that can erase what happened, and neither of us is foolish enough to pretend that surviving means everything suddenly becomes okay. There will be nightmares. There will be days when a smell or a sound or the wrong shadow in a hallway pulls us backward without warning. There will be moments when we think we're fine and then discover we're not.

But I also know that we can heal and that things can get better–no, they will get better–but I don’t say that because it feels too soon to promise any of us a future we haven't figured out yet. Healing isn't something I can hand to Augustine like a gift. We will have to find our own way there.

“I guess everyone knows you're both Count's legacy now,” I say after a moment, shifting the conversation toward something I know is already weighing on her. “Any idea what that means?”

“I hope it means nothing.” Augustine gives a small, humorless laugh. “North Side has been nothing but awful to our family.” Her gaze drops to the floor. “From what my grandfather did to my grandmother, to Lionel Lucia kicking her out, to our father's struggles with addiction. That place is a curse, not an asset. Lavinia was right to blow it up.”