Page 13 of Stream Heat
I shrugged. “Maybe she is. She just can’t let herself be.”
Reid exhaled. Sagged almost against the wall, head tipping back to thud softly against the drywall. “I hate this.”
Yeah, he wasn’t alone there.
I could handle the medical side. Heat crashes, rebounds, even trauma spirals. I knew those patterns, the right protocols. What I wasn’t trained for? Getting handed someone’s trust for five minutes, then forced to watch them lock you out again. Not because you did anything wrong. But because holding on just hurt too much.
“She’s not going to be okay alone,” Reid said, voice low and flat. “Not tonight.”
“She told us to go,” Ash replied.
“She didn’t mean it,” Reid snapped.
“She did,” I said, careful to keep my voice steady. “Same way people mean ‘I’m fine’ while they’re bleeding out. The words are real, but the pain behind them’s louder.”
“She needs time,” Jace said. “Rest, hydration, zero pressure. If we go back in, she’ll just shut down harder. Next time? She doesn’t call anyone at all.”
Theo stared at his shoes. “We just… leave?”
I watched him, the way his hands wouldn’t quit moving, how he rocked heel to toe. “We give her space. Not distance.”
Reid frowned, brow furrowing. “What’s the difference?”
“Distance means we vanish. Space means we back off, but she still knows we’re close. That if she reaches out again, someone’s there.”
Jace’s nod was sharp, immediate. “We park in the van. Down the block. Let her have the time.”
“Two hours,” I said. “First one’ll be fallout. Adrenaline dump, panic, all of it. She needs to feel in control before she tries again. But we stay close enough that she knows she’s not alone unless she wants to be.”
Ash raised a brow. “And if she never calls?”
“We check in tomorrow,” I said. “Text, gentle. No pressure. Let her decide.”
Theo hesitated. “I don’t like it.”
“None of us do.”
We left in silence. Reid’s eyes kept flicking back to the door, jaw flexed so tight it had to hurt. Kara’s scent clung to all of us, sour and desperate, even through the suppressants; like the need had sunk into our skin.
Back in the van, the mood was different. Not angry. Not resigned. Just suspended.
Reid slumped into the front seat, arms braced on his knees, hands gripping one another. His eyes rimmed red, but dry. He wasn’t the type to cry. His misery was a quiet, all-consuming thing.
“She said my name,” he whispered. “Before she asked us to hurry.”
No one replied.
He looked at me. “She knew it was me. Even through the haze. Even in heat.”
“I know,” I answered.
“That means something.”
“It does.”
“But it wasn’t enough.”
“It was,” I said, sharper than before. “We did what we could. Water, fever down, vitals stable. Gave her the meds. Safe as we could make it. That’s more than she had before.”
