“For a heartbeat, she imagined pulling him fully against her—imagined a future they’d never been promised...”

Outside, the world throbbed with chaos, but inside each other’s arms it quieted—just breath and skin and presence and the slow, ebbing rhythm of two people no longer running. For a heartbeat, she imagined pulling him fully against her—imagined a future they’d never been promised... For a heartbeat they found a pocket where the world stayed still long enough to let them believe. Malia closed her eyes and let herself stay there, letting the steady rise and fall of his breath be the only metronome that mattered.