I open my eyes, trying to push away the memory of her broken bone illuminated by moonlight.

When I do, she’s looking back at me.

“Bria?”

She doesn’t say anything, just shifts her eyes from my face to our joined hands to her suspended leg with its pristine white cast, then to her other hand, twisting her wrist. She looks at the bedrail on that side, then the door. And finally back to me.

“I guess they know I’m not running,” Bria says, pressing the button to raise the head of the bed. I pass her a cup of water and realize she must have been looking for handcuffs or an officer posted at the door.

“You’re not in trouble. They’ll want to speak with you later, but only when you’re ready,” I explain. Bria shifts again, wincing before she settles. The pain in her eyes doesn’t fade. “Do you need more morphine? I can get the nurse.”

Bria’s brows furrow as she regards me. “No,” she says, her gaze falling away, the agony still heavy in her eyes. “I’m fine. Is Samuel okay?”

“Considering he’s threatened to kill me twice since nine o’clock, yeah… I’d say he’s in top form.”

“What about Gabe? Did they catch him?”

My heart sinks deeper into my chest as her question echoes in its chambers. I shake my head and swallow the spike lodged in my throat. “No… Gabe is dead, sweetheart.”

A long silent moment stretches between us. Bria squeezes my hand as she watches me, hopelessness and regret settling in the tears that glass her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I tried… I didn’t… I wouldn’t do that to you…”

“I know it wasn’t you. It was me.” A beat of guilt drums in my chest. But every time it hits, I see the hammer swing behind him and the destruction twisting Gabe’s features into a man I barely recognized. That moment of regret dissolves in an instant. “He was going to kill you, Bria. I love the brother I knew. I’ve mourned the boy I grew up with for years. But the man I saw…that wasn’t him.”

Bria’s bruised lip quivers. Her eyes press closed and she bends her head, wiping her cheek with the back of her free hand. It shatters my heart to realize it’s not relief I see in her face. It’s failure.

“Bria…” I lean closer, gripping her hand tighter when she makes a weak effort to pull it free. When I slide my thumb over a tear on her cheek, she shakes her head. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“It’s not,” she says, her eyes snapping open as she shakes her head again. The rage in her glare is glazed with a patina of sorrow. “I’m just… I’m so sorry, Eli. I wanted to give him back to you. He was supposed to live.”

“If he had, he would’ve done everything he could to drag you down with him.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to work, Eli. Those are the rules.”

Though she’s firing my words from our argument back at me, I can tell by her face it’s not with the intention to cause hurt. She believes that’s what I wanted. Maybe at one time it was. And she would have done anything to give it to me. She was genuinely ready to fall with Gabe, if that’s what it took. But in doing so, Bria was trying to fit into a box that she can never mold to.

“Maybe some rules don’t serve us well,” I say, sweeping more tears from her cheek. “Some people are just meant to break them.”

“Yeah, by like, fucking the patriarchy or something. Not by killing people,” Bria says. She looks at me for only a heartbeat before her attention strays to the corner of the room as she makes every effort to shut her emotions down. It’s a battle she doesn’t win. “Thank you, Eli,” she whispers, flicking her gaze in my direction without meeting my eyes. “I’ll never forget what you did for me. But you should go.”

“No, I don’t think so, Pancake.”

A deep, shuddering sigh fills Bria’s lungs. The agony in her face is excruciating. “Eli, I can’t be the person you deserve. I can’t change who I am in the ways that matter. You said love was about letting go when you know you can’t be what the other person needs. And I do love you, so much more than I thought I could. Saying goodbye is me loving you the best way I can. It’s the right thing for both of us.”

I keep hold of Bria’s hand as I shift closer until she has no choice but to look at me. “I also said it’s about fighting harder when things get tough. You didn’t put yourself through all this to give up now,” I say, my thumb making a careful pass over her split lip. “And I didn’t race over half the county in a blind panic thinking you might be dead just to let you go when I’ve got you back. I’ve never been as terrified as when I stood on that dock and expected to catch sight of your body out there in the water.”

Bria’s brow furrows in confusion. “You went to the cabin?”

“And your bug-out cache, and Honeycomb House, and a farm you apparently blew up… I even went back to the cabin to see if you’d returned for supplies. That’s when Samuel received your instructions about railroading Koffi N’Doli into pulling his people from the Vellera compound. I guess he’d much rather abandon his Lamb Heath contract than suffer the wrath of your computer wizard uncle and all his fail-safe backup plans.”

I sweep the hair from Bria’s forehead, watching as she takes in my face, her gaze lingering on my cheek. I smile enough that her eyes narrow at my dimple. My heart nearly bursts when she reaches a tentative finger up to trace it across my skin. Though there’s still so much hesitancy in her weary expression, that one simple act is enough. I catch her fingers and bring them to my lips.

“We didn’t go through all that to let each other go. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to make our own rules. Ones we can both live with. Such as, I won’t leave you in the woods with wild animals after an argument. And you won’t kill FBI informants. We’ll trust one another to share our secrets so we don’t wind up here again. Sometimes it’s going to be hard, but we’ll find our own middle ground, one day at a time.”

I lean closer, my movement slow and careful, our gazes still soldered together until I place a gentle kiss on the faint freckles I’ve missed so much over these last few days. Bria’s breath hitches as her eyes drift closed.

“I can’t stop what I do, Eli,” she whispers as I place another kiss to her nose.

“I’m not asking you to.”

“What if I fuck this up?”

“We’ll both fuck it up sometimes,” I say, a kiss lingering on her tear-stained cheek. “That’s what makeup sex is for, Pancake.”

Her laugh is lost in a breath of longing as I warm her skin with my lips. “What if I find out your glasses weren’t prescription and they somehow wind up broken? Or a rogue tiger mysteriously enters the house and shreds all your tweed?”

I frame her face and smile, the first genuine smile I’ve felt in my face in days. A glimmer of relief brightens in Bria’s eyes as she watches me. “Then I’ll go to Cedar Ridge and steal all the bifocals and tweed I can find, and when I get home and you give me the evil eye, I’ll know you really love me.”

Bria’s palm warms my face. It’s just a simple touch, but it looks like it means everything to her. “I do really love you,” she says. “And I’m sorry.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry too.”

A faint smile rises in her face and the cracks that have been aching in my heart stitch back together as Bria presses her lips to mine. Her taste and scent flood my senses, cementing the first truth between us, the one I’ve known since the second I thought I’d lost her.

We belong to one another.

We just need time. With every touch, with every secret spoken or truth shared, we’ll grow and bind together.

And that’s what we do.

Just like healing Bria’s broken body, day after day, we get stronger. Splintered pieces pull together. Sometimes it takes rest and reflection. Other times it takes effort, just like Bria’s rehab. She works through pain to make her leg stronger. We work through hurt to make our relationship better. Some days are great. Others aren’t. But even on the days when it’s not, we’re still twining together. Learning to trust one another. To rely on one another.