“How?” asked Erin.

“I’m sorry, honey. She kil ed herself.” Santa scowled, helping his daughter down. “I don’t know what to say.”

“She wouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense.” Erin stepped into her father’s waiting arms. “She … No. Why would she do that, Dad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He wrapped a beefy arm around his child and led her away, holding up an arm to keep others back.

“Come on.” Finn ushered Ali through the crowd as Daniel fell into step by her side, taking the hand she offered. Needing the connection.

Everyone spoke in hushed voices. Like the pro he was, Finn avoided getting them held up by the gathering. They were hustling her up the staircase toward home in no time, the sliding glass door downstairs firmly locked behind them.

The kid gripped Ali’s elbow like she was a criminal about to make a run for it. Nothing Dan could do. This spat was going to happen.

Probably needed to. He had his own concerns with how she had taken off without a word, but going medieval was not going to work.

He stayed close, ready to intervene if required.

“Finn.” She wrenched her arm free and turned about, facing them down. Something in the kid’s face had her flinching, mouth pinched and pained. “Relax, would you?”

“You think this is a joke?” Finn roared. Very young male lion. It would have been funny, except it wasn’t.

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Dan opened his mouth to intercede, but his girl held up a hand, flicked him an unhappy but entirely capable look.

“No, I don’t think this is a joke,” she said. “But you do need to calm down. One of us needed to go. I went. End of story.”

“Like f**k. We’re trying to protect you here, Al,” Finn bit out. “You just go ahead and make the decision to put yourself in danger?

Without discussing it with us first?”

“I want to protect you both too. Can you get that?”

“Protect us?”

“Yes.” Al threw herself into the nearest camp chair and started removing a boot with angry tugs at the shoelace. “If I’d mentioned the supply run to either of you, you wouldn’t have let me out of your sight.”

“Babe …” Dan took a big step forward, making to touch her, only to receive the stop-sign hand again.

“No.” Ali wrestled off a boot, dropped it with an almighty thud. “Did you think it would work differently for me? I care about both of you. The thought of either of you going out there … I couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t. It was easier to go myself. I’m not going to apologize.

I’m not going to promise not to do it again.”

“Like hell you’re going out there again,” Finn said. “Ever. Over my dead body, Al.”

“Don’t you get it?” Daniel cleared his throat. “That’s what she’s afraid of.”

His girl glared at Finn, ready to re-launch the war. Shit, enough already. “There are going to have to be rules, for al of us,” Dan said.

“She’l get herself killed!” Finn hissed. “How could you agree with this?”

“‘This’ being our girlfriend? The woman we’re supposed to be in a mature, adult relationship with?” Daniel enquired, tipping his chin at the foxy if furious Exhibit A. “Because we’re meant to be on her side. Within reason. I didn’t talk her down from the roof just to lock her up somewhere else. I do not want to lose her.”

The kid growled, and paced like a caged animal. Up and down, up and down, while Ali watched, nonplussed. “Fine, we’l ease up.

But you do not go out again.”

His girl rose to her feet, radiating fury. Dan was singed just being in the same room. “Not good enough. I won’t be wrapped in cotton wool while you two take all the risks. Do you really believe they’ll let us stay in your precious town if we’re not seen to be contributing?

Seriously?”

“Al …”

“I’m not budging on this.”

“Then we have a problem,” said Finn.

“No, Finn. You have a problem,” his girl said. “There are some things I can’t do. Standing back while you’re in danger is one of those things.”

Finn’s nostrils flared. “I’m trained to handle dangerous situations. You are not.”

“I don’t care.”

“Al …”

“No, Finn. I love you, but no.”

The kid gave a good impression of a man who’d had the fight sucker punched right out of him. He stopped and stared. “You love me?”

“Yes. I love you,” she said.

Finn stared at her, face rigid and hands balled tight. “Shit.”

“Is that real y so bad?” she asked.

The kid grabbed her and held on tight. And his girl fitted herself against Finn, her face in his neck, arms wrapped around him like she couldn’t let go.

Inside Dan’s ribcage something hurt, just like it had earlier today when he thought he’d lost her. No amount of rubbing the heel of his hand at it helped.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ali stood belowground in a hardware store basement a half-hour north of Blackstone. Her itchy scalp and damp hair lay beneath her helmet-and-flashlight combo. The confining, dark, hot and dusty space reminded her of old times, only this time she was under a building instead of above a house.

She and her supply buddy, Andy the goth, sorted stock. Others did the same above, clearing the shop floor. Boxes of rope and nails, flashlights and batteries sat in nice piles. Al of the useable items were moved beside the stairs, where Andy then hauled them up to the trucks.

Dan was somewhere aboveground helping load, it being his day to babysit from afar. Keeping her men at home was no more feasible than their hopes to ground her were. No one was completely happy. The last few days had been full of terse words and tense silences.

Eventually, something was going to have to give. Sweat covered her, sticking her t-shirt to her back. Hours must have passed because her muscles ached and her throat was bone dry. She squeezed by the stacks of boxes, searching for her water bottle.

“Andy?” He had mentioned getting a drink and disappeared a while back. She wore no watch. Had no clue what time it was or how long they had worked. “Andy, you there?”

And it was quiet, too quiet.

No reply came to her call, the echo of her own voice and her breathing the only sounds. Labored and loud. Shit.




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