Elias hadn’t had enough time to jump to any conclusions, beyond that whatever it was was bad, but he folded her into his arms nonetheless, shaking his head gently at all her sorrys. And perhaps she shouldn’t be here like this, alone, early in the morning, but – no one else was here to see it, and he couldn’t possibly care about how it looked when she was crying like this, anyway.

All he could feel was a tearing ache in his chest at her desperate face, and although he wanted to know what had caused it, she felt too fragile to push for anything. So he settled for holding on, one hand against her hair and his other palm brushing up and down her back in a silent attempt to express I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

But he inhaled sharply when she eventually stammered out the words. “At Wildflowers?” Elias said in horror, and in the back of his mind there was another jolt of horror at all night. All night she’d been in trouble, and he was only hearing about it now. He’d had no idea; he was as good as useless. He tightened his grasp around her, tightly enough that he could have lifted her off the floor if he’d wanted to – but now he just really didn’t want to let her go. At least she was safe now, he told himself, but his throat had gone dry. “Did they hurt you?”

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