ONE EIGHTY ONE

Inside the room, Isabella shifted again, the mattress creaking under her slight weight. "Someone is looking for you," she said softly. "I promise you that, Adam. Someone who loves you very much is looking for you. And they would move the whole world to find you."

A long, ragged breath escaped Adam — the kind that sounded half like a sob and half like the last shred of hope slipping away.

"Okay," he said finally, his voice breaking. "Okay."

And with that, the conversation drifted into silence.

I stayed outside the door for a long moment longer, my heart splintering, guilt wrapping itself tighter and tighter around my ribs until I thought I might suffocate from the weight of it. I had been so sure of myself this morning — so sure that treating Isabella like an enemy had been the right call, so sure that keeping my distance from Adam, keeping the secret, was the only way to protect him.

But now, hearing his voice — hearing the pain and the fear he was trying so hard to hide — I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Except that I had failed him. Failed them both.

That was it. That was the moment something broke loose inside of me, a quiet, awful crack right down the center of my heart. I leaned my forehead harder against the doorframe, blinking rapidly against the sting of tears. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried for myself. There had been no space for it—no time, no luxury. Only survival, only the next safe space, the next plan, the next breath. But standing here now, listening to the woman I had wronged soothe my son’s fears and offer kindness I hadn’t earned, I felt something hot and painful swelling up inside me.

I don’t deserve her kindness.
I don’t deserve this forgiveness.
But I will find a way to make it right.

I stayed there for another full minute, breathing in the sounds of them together—Adam’s happy chatter, Isabella’s soft, patient replies—until I could trust myself not to break down when I opened the door.
I owed her that much.
I owed them both that much.

I knocked softly, barely loud enough to be heard.
The murmuring behind the door stopped immediately.
A pause—then footsteps, light and cautious.

The door cracked open a sliver, just wide enough for one dark, wary eye and a tumble of unruly curls to peer out. Isabella’s face appeared in the narrow gap, her features drawn and pale, the deepening shadows under her eyes making her look far older than she should. Fatigue clung to her like a second skin, her shoulders slightly hunched, her mouth a thin, tight line. And just below her, clutching stubbornly to the hem of her sweater with white-knuckled fists, was Adam.

He stood half-hidden behind her, but his eyes locked onto mine immediately. There was no innocent trust there, no unfiltered affection like there might have been if he were younger. No. His gaze was cutting, suspicious, the way a cornered animal sizes up a threat. To him, I wasn’t a protector. I wasn’t anything close to that. I was the enemy. I was the reason he was here, trapped behind a closed door, left wondering if he'd ever see home again.

The sight of him, so vulnerable yet so fiercely protective of himself, made my throat tighten unbearably.

"Eleanor?" Isabella’s voice was rough, worn thin by exhaustion. Her hand lifted slightly, as if ready to shield Adam should anything go wrong. I realized, with a sharp, shameful pang, that she didn’t trust me either, not fully. And she had every reason not to.

I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to stay steady even though it felt like razor wire wrapped around my vocal cords. "We need you," I whispered hoarsely. "Tina’s getting worse. We have to dress her for transport. I...I need help getting her changed into something soft. Easy."

For a moment, Isabella simply stared at me. A thousand things seemed to flicker behind her tired eyes, hurt, reluctance, worry, but she didn’t argue. She didn’t make me beg. She only turned slightly, prying Adam’s clenched fingers gently from her sweater with a series of soft, murmured promises I couldn’t quite catch. Her movements were slow, patient, like untangling a frightened bird from a net.

Adam’s face pinched in immediate protest. His brows furrowed low over his dark eyes, his mouth tightening into a stubborn frown. He gripped her harder at first, like he could will her to stay if he just held tight enough.

"Wait," he blurted, shooting a suspicious glance my way. His voice was louder than it should have been for how tense the hallway felt, but he was too focused on Isabella to care. "I’m coming too."

The words hit me square in the chest.

Isabella crouched down slightly, whispering to him again, but his eyes didn’t leave mine. His gaze sharpened, challenging, daring me to deny him. His fists were still balled tight at his sides, small but ready to fight if he had to.

I crouched slightly too, trying to make myself smaller, less threatening, even though every instinct screamed that it wouldn’t work — not after everything.

"You need to stay here, Adam," I said as gently as I could manage. I kept my voice low, soft, the way you spoke to a wounded animal on the verge of biting. "We’ll be back soon. Isabella will come back to you."

He didn’t move. His eyes darted between us, calculating, distrustful. A muscle feathered along his jaw — such an adult expression that it broke my heart a little more. "I don’t trust you," he said bluntly, the words flat and steady, and somehow, that honesty hurt worse than if he had screamed it.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to nod. "I know," I whispered. "You don’t have to. Just... stay put, okay? Stay here. She’ll come back. I promise."

He stared at me a second longer, like he was weighing the promise in his hands, like he was trying to decide if it was worth anything coming from me. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he released the last of Isabella’s sweater, his hands falling limply to his sides. But he didn’t step back into the room. He stood there, just inside the doorframe, blocking the entrance like a tiny, stubborn guard dog, his chin lifted in silent defiance.

I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have trusted me either.

Isabella brushed a knuckle lightly down the side of his face — a motherly, tender gesture that twisted something viciously inside my chest. Then, with a final soft word I couldn’t hear, she slipped into the hallway with me, pulling the door closed behind her with a slow, careful motion so it didn’t click too loud and set him off into another wave of panic.

As she stepped past me, I caught her hand instinctively, her fingers cool and trembling slightly against my palm. She didn’t pull away. She let me hold her, not tight, not desperate, just long enough for it to mean something.

The hallway felt suffocatingly narrow around us, the old wooden walls pressing inward, the ticking of the grandfather clock down the corridor deafening in the quiet. The air smelled faintly of old pine and candle wax, and somewhere upstairs a floorboard groaned under its own weight.

I didn’t know how to start. The words jammed up in my throat like a traffic pileup — tangled, frantic, desperate to get out but too twisted with shame to find the right way.

"I—" I croaked, then stopped, my mouth dry. I squeezed her fingers gently, as if somehow that would communicate everything better than my clumsy tongue ever could.

Isabella looked at me, really looked at me, and there was no anger in her tired eyes. No smug satisfaction at seeing me flounder. Just patience. A strange, heartbreaking patience that made it even harder to go on.

"I was wrong," I forced out finally, my voice small. Pathetic. I couldn’t even look her straight in the eye. My gaze dropped somewhere near her shoulder, like maybe if I didn’t see her face, it wouldn’t hurt so much. "Back there... earlier... I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that."

The words were heavy, dragging themselves out of me like stones pulled from the bottom of a deep, muddy river. My chest felt tight, each breath squeezing smaller.

"I know you were just—" I shook my head, struggling. My throat worked hard against a knot of shame that refused to budge. "You were just defending your family. Protecting the only people you had left. I would’ve done the same if it were Adam. I..." I trailed off, hating how thick and shaky my voice sounded. "I treated you like you were part of the problem. And you weren’t. You were never the problem."

The silence stretched painfully between us. I stared down at our joined hands, wishing I could go back and erase the morning. Erase the words I'd thrown at her like knives because I had been scared, and desperate, and needed someone — anyone — to blame. But the damage had been done. And now all I had were these broken pieces to offer.

Her fingers squeezed mine — gently, so gently — and when I finally dared to lift my gaze to hers, I saw her shake her head once. Small. Decisive. A single breath escaped her, more weary than angry.

"We don’t have time for that now," she said softly, cutting through my stumbling apology like a knife through smoke. Her voice wasn’t harsh — it was steady. Focused. Grounded in something bigger than either of us. "Tina needs us."

Her words landed heavy but not cruel. A reminder. A mercy.

I blinked hard, swallowing down the rest of the apology that sat useless on my tongue. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness — not yet. Maybe not ever. But right now, forgiveness wasn’t the priority. Survival was. I nodded — a small, jerky movement — and finally let her hand slip from mine.

Without another word, Isabella turned toward the room where Tina lay, her steps brisk despite the exhaustion weighing her down. Her shoulders were still slumped with fatigue, but her spine stayed straight, determined. She wasn’t doing this for me. She was doing it for the broken girl lying half-conscious upstairs. For Adam. For whatever fragments of good she still believed could be salvaged from this nightmare.

I took a breath that rattled in my lungs and followed her, the guilt hanging off me like a sodden cloak. Later — if there was a later — I would find a way to fix this. To show her that she mattered, that she wasn’t just a pawn in the mess we'd dragged her into.

But for now, there was only Tina. And the clock ticking faster than any of us could afford.