“Tomorrow,” Dominic says at last, voice raw. “I leave if he insists. But I’ll come back for you, however I can.”
“Don’t leave,” I beg. It’s small, honest, stupidly vulnerable.
He presses his forehead to mine. “If I leave, I leave to keep you safe. But I’ll be back. I can’t not be.”
The words are a vow and a knife. I laugh, a sound that’s half-cry. “Come back alive.”
“I plan to,” he says, and for a heartbeat I believe him like prayer.
We fall asleep tangled, the world outside turned to a new, terrible direction. I dream of headlines, of phones lighting up, of Tyler laughing as an ocean of comments swamps my life. I wake to the sound of the front door — slow, heavy footsteps — and a voice that makes ice crawl under my skin.
“Brie,” my father calls, his tone fractured. “There’s somethin
