My heart stutters a little in my chest, and I take a step forward, and then another, and then another. He’s up the steps and colliding with me only a moment later, his hands wrapped around me, and he’s laughing, okay? He’s laughing, and it’s a sound I haven’t heard in a very long time, happy and carefree. When he left here, when he put Seafare at his back, he still wasn’t the person I remembered. He was getting there, and I knew he’d do it, even then, but he still wasn’t… there.

But here he is, and he’s laughing, that high-pitched noise he makes when he’s really excited or finds something really funny. I grip him tightly, and his hands find the back of my hair and he’s babbling in my ear like he’d done when he was just a little guy, talking about the things he’s seen, like the world’s largest ball of twine and something called Carhenge, and how they were in the middle of nowhere New Mexico and they saw a meteor shower, the brightest one he’d ever seen, and it’s been amazing.

I don’t let him go for the longest time.

He seems to be okay with that.

But it can’t stay like this, no matter how much I want it to, and I know it’s going to hurt. I know it will, because even though I said I was fine, I don’t know that I am. And I curse her in my head for fucking with us one last time. For doing something to us yet again, even if she’s gone.

There’s another hand on my shoulder, and I know who it is, because I would always know.

He understands me almost as much as my brother does.

I let Tyson Thompson go, and he’s taking a step back, dark eyes bright. His skin is flushed, and he’s grinning at me. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey, yourself,” I say back.

And then I’m shoved out of the way so he can hug Otter too.

Dominic Miller stands at the bottom of the stairs, a soft smile on his face. A little version of him stands beside him, holding on to his big hand.

“Bear,” Dom says in that gravelly voice of his.

I walk down the steps and hug him too. He seems surprised but leans down a little to hug me back. Ben ignores us both.

“He’s going to need you, I think,” I mutter, no matter how much it pains me to say so. “Shit hit the fan.”

Dom tenses. “How?” He lifts his chin from my shoulder, and I know he’s looking up at Ty, who is talking excitedly with Otter.

“She’s dead.”

He doesn’t even ask who. “How?”

“Heart attack.”

“Isabelle?”

“Inside.”