My eyes gave her the answer before I opened my mouth.
Something in her face closed. The hand on the frame tightened until the knuckles went bloodless.
"Bram." She didn't move off the threshold. "Is Max alright?"
I pulled her into me.
She fought it at once — both palms flat against my chest, shoving hard enough that the wound at my neck pulled and the dried blood on my shirt cracked under her fingers. She didn't want the comfort. She wanted the word. I let her go.
She found her balance in the doorway. One hand still on the wood.
"Answer me."
"He's gone."
She stood there.
The alley held its dark. Code's weight shifted once on the veranda boards and went still. Somewhere behind her, in the room, a floorboard ticked.
Then she breathed out once and that was all of it. No collapse. No sound. Only the breath, and the space it left.
"You looked at me."
Her voice had something coming apart underneath it. Not volume. Structure.
"I tried."
