Zoe POV

James looks at Noah. Then at me. Something passes across his face so quickly I almost miss it—a reading, a calculation—and then he moves.

Three steps. Deliberate. He puts himself between us with the particular certainty of someone who has already made the decision and is simply executing it, and he looks me over in that brief, checking way, and then turns to Noah with an expression I haven’t seen from him in a while.

“What did you do to her.”

“This ...