The rain hadn't let up in hours.
It hammered against the windows in relentless, uneven waves, thunder rolling close enough now that the whole building seemed to shudder faintly with each strike, and somewhere beneath all of it, Penelope sat curled in the corner of her bed with her knees drawn to her chest, listening to the storm instead of thinking about anything at all.
She hadn't left her room since they'd gotten back from the marina. She'd told herself it was exhaustion. She wasn't entirely lying — her body ached in the particular deep way it always did after a night of fighting and driving and watching people she couldn't save disappear into the rain behind her. But underneath the exhaustion sat something else, something that had been sitting there for days now, quiet and unaddressed, and every time she thought she might finally be ready to face it, the effort of it exhausted her all over again before she'd even started.
Oddy still hadn't come back.
