Noelle felt Miriam flinch, and the fear she’d been feeling started to harden into anger.
“And do what, Ziva?” Noelle snapped. “Threaten Carrigan’s? Oh wait.” That anger unfurled something awful in her gut. A suspicion that felt like poison worked its way up her throat before she could stop it. “Miri, did you know he would do this? Did you know he would threaten Carrigan’s, and you came here anyway?”
“Can someone tell me what we’re talking about?” Hannah asked.
At the same time, Cole grabbed Noelle’s arm and said, “HEY. Back off. She would never do that.”
Noelle immediately wanted to snatch the words back out of the air.
Next to her, Miriam had started shaking, looking up with wild eyes.
“I didn’t know, but I should have. If I’d just thought…I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I should have known that he would find out I was happy, and he would come after me.” Her words came out small and rushed, with no breaths in between.
Noelle wanted to dam them up, but she couldn’t stop the flood. She hated that she’d said anything. She knew Miriam better than that. She might hurt people accidentally by being insular and wrapped up in her own pain, but she would never knowingly put any of them at risk.
“That’s what he does—my mom’s right. I’m sure he’s already planning to pay her back for even being here, with me. He’s been monitoring my social media, Iknowthat. I should have been careful. I didn’t think there was anything else he could do to me, because he already took everything. I should have remembered he could still come after my friends.”
“I shouldn’t have—” Noelle said, trying to hold on to Miriam, but she wrenched her body away.
“I have to go. I have to leave Carrigan’s, and then he’ll leave you all alone. You’ll be safe if I go.” Miriam tried to get out from where she was sandwiched in the middle of the booth, pushing at Cole to move.
Noelle felt something inside her fracture, her panic and anger crescendoing and crashing to shore.
She’d asked Miriam what would happen the next time she got spooked, and Miriam had promised she wouldn’t run again. She’d told Miriam that she couldn’t handle another person leaving, and Miriam had begged for a chance to prove herself.
“I don’t know what else to do, Noelle,” Miriam said, finally freeing herself and standing. “I can’t take Carrigan’s from all of you. I won’t be the person who takes the only thing you love away from you.”
“I don’t want you to fall on your sword, Miriam,” Noelle protested, furious. “I want you to fight for this.”
“Elijah,” Miriam said quietly, firmly, “please draw up paperwork to give my shares to Hannah and Noelle. It’s what I should have done from the beginning.”
Before Noelle could object again, Miriam fled, outside, into the snow. Noelle grabbed a jacket to push out after her.
“I’ll go,” Cole said, starting to get up.
Noelle held out a hand. “I’m going.”
He scowled but nodded.
She found Miriam outside, shivering, with the snow swirling around her. She was staring off into the back acreage, concentrating hard on something Noelle couldn’t see. Noelle slipped her jacket over Miriam’s shoulders, and Miriam turned her face up to Noelle’s. Noelle had never seen her so pale.
“I’m going to miss the trees,” Miriam said. “I was trying to memorize them.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Noelle said. “This is ridiculous. We are all going to fix this. The entire team is in there, ready to fight for this. We’re not going to give up.”
“We can’t fight him. He always wins,” Miriam said, sounding exhausted and resigned. She rubbed her hands down her jeans. “I was right. All those years, I was right. He must have been so mad, about the Bloomers, and he was just lying in wait like a spider for me to have something worth destroying. And I fell for it! I let you and Hannah convince me to let down my walls, and now there won’t be a Carrigan’s! Do you know what that would do to me, Noelle? All those years, I survived, knowing somewhere out there, Carrigan’s still existed. I can’t be the reason it’s destroyed. I can’t survive it!”
Noelle paced in the snow, her boots crunching rhythmically.
“So you’re going to leave us, leave Cass’s vision that you fought so hard for, leave everyone here who needs you. You’re going to run, again, instead of fighting.”
Noelle shook her head, her brain buzzing with angry bees. She hadn’t even started to dig herself out of the grief of losing Cass, and now the threat of losing Carrigan’s and Miriam, too, filled her with stark terror. Some part of the back of her brain was telling her that her anger was just her fear coming out sideways. She told the back of her brain to shut the fuck up. “I know you’re scared, but that’s bullshit, Miriam. If you run now, he knows he’ll always win. Stand and fight.”
“You don’t get to tell me how to respond to him,” Miriam cried. “It’s not your life.”
“Itismy life!” Noelle yelled. “You made me believe in a future with the two of us together, you made me fall for you, and now you’re running the instant it gets hard. I told you I was scared of ever trusting anyone again because everyone leaves, and now youareleaving. How is that not my life?”
“I’m doing this to protect you,” Miriam yelled back, her hair whipping into her mouth in the wind. She angrily pushed it back. “Because I love you! If I don’t, he’ll never stop coming for you. At least this way, he’s only coming for me!”