Anders
" G ot her!" Blake’s voice broke through the silence, triumph shattered with the sound of it.
"Where?" I stopped mid-step. Then ran faster than I’d ever run, because I knew Summer was at the end.
"At the coffee shop," Blake said.
I heard the pride in his voice.
But this was the closest we’d ever come to failure, and this time, we’d nearly lost everything.
"This way," Blake said, when I arrived. He was filled with an urgency, dropping the phone from his ear, and turning the motion into another step. And another.
When I saw her again, she was leaving the coffee shop, saying goodbye to her friend.
“Take care of her!” Maddie warned, I nodded, then she tapped my arm and walked away.
Summer sat down on the curb, knees drawn up to her chest, loose shirt pulled tight around her arms. It didn’t look like armor. It didn’t look like enough.
I thought she would run when she saw us, but there was a peacefulness in her eyes, a resolution I wasn’t ready to believe.
"Summer," I said, crouching in front of her. "We didn’t mean—"
The edge of her mouth caught the edge of a smile, just enough to stop me from saying the words we shouldn’t have to.
"You can run, princess," Zach said, arriving breathless and barely able to hold himself still. "But we’ll always find you."
Her hand stayed on her knee, and she didn’t reach for us, but she didn’t pull away either.
Blake towered above us all, but she was the only one who wasn’t looking up at him. She didn’t need to. He wasn’t as big as his expectations anymore. He was exactly her size, and he knew it.
"We’re with you," he said, and there was no question in it. No force. Just the truth.
She sighed, and it held the world inside it. It held more than that.
"We’re with you," I said, the echo only reinforcing what it needed to. "Always."
And this time, we didn’t let her slip away.
“Always and forever,” Zach said.