I quickly smooth my unruly hair, mostly to assuage Sibby’s concerns, and start to get out again.

“Meggie,” Sibby says, and I look over at her again. “You’re good, right?”

It’s not the first time she—or Lark—has asked since I’d flung myself through the apartment door, the pages of Reid’s letter clutched tight in my hand, my mind already racing toward what I needed to do next. Both of them, in their own ways, had made sure I slowed down, had made sure I’d thought it through. Sibby, who’d seen me through the revelation of another big scandal once upon a time, had furrowed her brow in worry. “This is a lot to handle, Meg. This kind of secret from someone you—” She broke off, apparently cautious about repeating everything I’d told her on Friday night. “Someone you felt so strongly about.”

Lark, too, had been tentative. Maybe she’d been optimistic yesterday—with our girl-power sleepover on the horizon—about how I could salvage my business, but in the light of day, she’d been more hard-nosed about it. “Being in the news, Meg,” she’d said with the serious expression of someone who knows what it’s like to be in the news. “It can be a lot to navigate. And if it’s between your work and him . . .”

She’d trailed off then, pressing her lips together, and I think Sibby and I both had gotten the sense that Lark had her own choices in mind, too.

“I’m good,” I tell them both now, keeping my voice firm, the same way it’d been when I’d answered them back in the apartment. When I’d told them how determined I was to do this.

How certain I was.

“Want us to go in with you?” Lark says hopefully. Now that we’ve taken this drive together, talking through it the whole way, they seem certain, too. As invested in this as I am.

I stand, turning back to them with one hand on the open car door, ducking so I can see them both.

“I love you guys for driving here with me, but I think I need to go in there alone.”

They both look crestfallen, but Sibby says, “Understood. We’ll wait right here. We’ll come up with something to kill the time.”

I smile. “Play a game,” I say, tossing her the keys. “There are signs everywhere around here. I’ll call you.”

I hear them call Good luck! to me in unison as I head toward the entrance, my palms sweaty with nerves. No matter how certain I am about this, it’s still going to be a fight. Maybe to get to him, and maybe once I do get to him, too. And after—after, there are still so many fights to have, against all of the enemies that Reid’s amassed over the last forty-eight hours.