Page 97 of Falcon’s Forever

“You were shot, Emily.”

“Cara,” she warns.

“I watched you before you were shot too,” I remind her.

“Not this much,” she says quietly.

"Debatable." She looks toward the door. Sarah left an hour ago with Ice Pick to get her clothes from the compound. Knox is somewhere arguing with a doctor about discharge medication, and there are two Saint’s Outlaws downstairs instead of outside her room, because she told them armed men in the corridor made her nervous and they moved without a single argument.

Emily picks at the edge of her blanket. “I don’t want to go back to the house.”

I settle back in the chair. “Okay.”

Her eyes snap toward me. “Okay?”

“Yes,” I say simply.

Her brow furrows. “You don’t think I should go back?”

“That’s not what I said.” I take a breath and wait.

She frowns, working through it, and I let the silence sit because she needs to get there herself.

“What if everyone else wants to go back?” she asks.

“Then they can.”

Emily stops picking at the blanket. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you don’t,” I tell her.

She looks around the hospital room. “Where would I go?”

"There are options. The transition house is almost ready. There are rooms near the clubhouse for now. Maggie has space too, though her security's being reviewed at the moment."

Emily’s mouth tightens. “Because they found that house too?”

“We don’t know that they found it,” I say carefully. “We only know someone connected to all of this has been in the area.”

“So probably,” she says.

“Maybe,” I admit.

Her fingers twist together in her lap. “I hate maybe.”

“So do I.”

She looks down at her hands. “What would you do?”

I have to actually think about that. A week ago, I would have answered immediately. I would have assessed the security, weighed what Falcon and the club could offer, and told her which option I thought was safest.

Today, I understand that isn’t what she’s asking. Or maybe it is, but that still isn’t the answer I should give her.

“I’d probably choose differently than you would,” I say.

Emily frowns. “That doesn’t help.”

“It isn’t supposed to.”