I need to see you. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t.

I glanced at the time. I was close to her parents’ place … I could swing by, though I wondered how quickly I could get back out. I didn’t want to go—the dread I felt at engaging was deep and fierce—but if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure what she’d do. Mix substances and hurt herself. Come to the shop and find me.

I thought through a dozen scenarios, and this was the only one that gave me control. I had to answer the call. I had to go.

I fired off a text to Tess. Gonna be a minute. You guys good?

My phone buzzed a second later. We’re good. Got plenty to do. Everything okay?

I drew a deep, disturbed breath and lied. Yeah, everything’s good. I’ll text when I’m on my way.

All right. See you soon. <3

I tossed my phone in the passenger seat, my jaw ticking and brows drawn.

I’d lied. Because how could I tell her over a text where I was going? How could I have told her at all with everything on her plate tonight?

No. I’d tell her tomorrow when all this was behind us. We could come up with a plan for dealing with Wendy, one we were both comfortable with. Because I couldn’t abandon Wendy.

But I would not lose Tess.

By the time I pulled up in front of Wendy’s building, a dark cloud had settled over Manhattan with the fall of the sun. The metallic scent of rain hung in the air, charged and ready to unleash. And I hurried up the stairs, not knowing what I’d find.

The meat of my hand thumped the door in three thundering bursts. And I waited.

The door flew open, and Wendy stood in the doorway.

Relief broke over her face, mottled and tearstained and shining. “You came,” she breathed, the words hoarse and cracked.

And she threw herself into my arms.

I caught her, my face tight and mind sharp. “What happened?” I asked.

Her hands fisted my shirt, her forehead pressed to my chest. “Nothing. Everything.”

Exhausted. Depleted. Stretched out and paper thin was the woman in my arms.

I stepped her inside, closed the door as the rain began to fall in fat splats, pinging the window like hail. A glance into her mother’s room informed me she was passed out—half off the bed, clothes twisted around her, her chest rising and falling in that slow rhythm of sleep made slower by booze or pills. Or both.

It was six-thirty.

Wendy crumpled in my arms.

“Whoa there,” I muttered, scooping her up to carry her to her bedroom.

The apartment seemed smaller than I remembered, older. Stained and fading. But her room was the same—tiny and bright, the only cheer in this dismal place.

I set her on her sagging bed and knelt at her feet.

“You came.” She still beamed as heavy tears rolled down the curve of her cheekbone.