Page 46 of Final Drive

She’s slipping away from us.

Reese climbs into the back of my truck without a word and wedges herself against the door. Tyler takes the front seat and starts typing before he’s got the belt on. Eli drops into the bed, quiet the way he always is.

In the mirror I watch the rest of them scatter. Gray’s Range Rover goes first with Beckett and Zane in it. Cameron and Jackson take the bikes and are past us inside a hundred yards.

Reese doesn’t lean forward. Doesn’t touch the radio. She looks out the window with the blank face I’ve learned to be afraid of. I know what’s going on in there. I’ve spent three months learning her silences, and this one is loud.

They’re only doing this because they have to.

She’s wrong, and I don’t know how to say so without it sounding like exactly the thing she’s braced for.

The drive home takes twelve minutes. Tyler fills most of them with the soft tap of his keyboard and two calls he doesn’t answer. Eli sits behind us in the truck bed, one hand hooked over the side, staring at nothing I can see. Nobody tries to talk to Reese.

I almost do twice.

Both times I stop myself.

We’ve been talking at her since Kowalski walked into the boathouse. Legal options. Media strategy. Filing deadlines. Claims. Every one of us trying to build a wall around her while she’s standing in the middle wondering when she became another thing we needed to protect.

By the time we pull into the driveway, she’s out before I’ve cut the engine.

Cameron and Jackson are already there. Cameron gets his helmet off and watches the front door close behind her while Jackson kills his bike beside him.

“She’s going to think we did it because we had to,” I say.

Cameron doesn’t look at me. “She already does.”

Tyler gets out with his laptop tucked under his arm and heads inside. Eli follows, leaving the three of us in the driveway.

“You going up?” I ask Cameron.

His jaw works once. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know how to make this better without making it worse.”

That’s more honesty than Cameron usually gives anybody without being cornered into it.

Jackson pulls off his helmet. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

“No,” Cameron says. “But that doesn’t mean she wants one of us in her room.”

Jackson looks toward the house. I know that look. He can feel her through the bond, probably better than I can read her from the outside, and everything in him is telling him to follow.

“Give her a minute,” I tell him.

His eyes cut to mine. “How many?”

I almost smile. “I don’t know, man. I’m making this up too.”

That seems to surprise him.

Maybe it shouldn’t. Somewhere along the way they all decided I’m good at this stuff. I’m the one who makes food when somebody forgets to eat, remembers how everyone takes their coffee, knows when Zane needs to talk and when Gray needs everybody to leave him the hell alone. Half the time I’m guessing like everybody else. I just pay attention to whether the guess worked.

Cameron finally looks at me. “You do.”

“Do what?”