Chapter 36
Thirty Six
Callan
That night was like coming home.
I lay on my back staring at the ceiling, one arm wrapped around Sloane as she slept against me. The bed was warm, the mattress soft—a softness my body had almost forgotten existed. After weeks of hard couches and a cold night under open sky on a boat deck—this bordered on holy.
Sloane had curled toward me sometime after drifting off, her head resting on my chest like it belonged there. One leg thrown over mine, her hand tucked against my side. Her breathing was slow and deep.
Peaceful. Every once in a while she shifted, pressing closer in her sleep, as if part of her needed the contact without even realizing it.
I didn’t move, didn’t want to risk waking her.
So I lay there, staring at the dark wood ceiling and listening to the quiet sounds of the cabin.
Wind moving softly through the trees outside.
The distant murmur of Jeff and Ethan in the other cabin had long since faded.
We had made it, actually made it somewhere safe, at least for now.
The realization settled over me.
A month ago, I’d been living a different life: going to work, going home—well, to a house—arguing with Sloane over stupid shit at the aquarium. Back then, if someone had told me what this tiny woman would eventually do to me, I would’ve laughed in their face.
Love died a long time ago for me.
At least that’s what I’d believed.
After Sadie, I swore I’d never do it again. Never put myself in a position where someone had the power to rip my life apart just by leaving. I told myself it wasn’t worth it, easier to stay detached, keep everything casual, distant.
Safe.
But sometime between the aquarium, the boat, and the blood-soaked dock, something changed.
I looked down at Sloane.
Her dark hair spilled across my chest and shoulder, still damp from the shower earlier. Her face was already relaxed in sleep, the tension she carried during the day absent. She looked smaller like this, softer.
But I knew better.
This woman had fought zombies with a damn fish hook, almost gotten herself killed guarding me while I pumped fuel, swam through a flooded tank system while the dead clawed after her.
Tiny, sure.
But tougher—genuinely tougher—in ways that mattered more now.
A smile tugged at my mouth.
A month ago I would’ve laughed at the idea of this fierce, argumentative woman holding the power to shatter everything I am.
But I understood what this meant, I’d carried it once before, and that’s what made it terrifying.
Because love isn’t peace.
Love is fear, the real kind, anyway.
It’s the moment someone else holds the power to destroy you and you hand it over willingly. It’s choosing their life over your own without thinking. It’s knowing their loss would destroy you in ways you’d never come back from.
Love meant you were no longer the most important person in your own story.
And somehow—quietly, stubbornly, against every wall I’d built—I’d ended up here again.
The odd part?
I didn’t mind, not one bit.
I tightened my arm around her. She shifted against me, her breath warm on my chest.
Because if this really turned out to be the end of everything we knew—if this cabin on a quiet postage stamp of an island marked the farthest any of us got—I’d go out happy.
Wrapped around a tiny woman who fought like hell, argued with me constantly, and fucked like a demon when the world gave us five minutes of peace.
Yeah, I could die with that.
But Sloane didn’t realize any of this yet.
To her, this still lived in the category of survival. Adrenaline. The strange closeness that comes from being thrown into chaos with someone and clinging to whatever warmth you can find.
She hadn’t reached the place I had.
Not yet.
And that sat fine with me.
I could wait.
I’d wait her out—patient, quiet, stubborn in the way only someone who’s already made up their mind can be. Wait until she recognized what this truly meant, until she understood that whatever started between us in the ruins of that aquarium didn’t have an expiration date.
It wasn’t going anywhere, and neither would I.
I brushed a slow hand through her hair, careful, barely touching. She stirred just enough to press closer, a soft sound leaving her lips before her breathing steadied again.