I opened my mouth to answer and paused.Why are you discussing strategy with this woman?
“Who are you?” I said. “I saw you at the church this morning for our chaplain’s funeral. Funerals aren’t usually the kind of thing that people walk into by mistake.”
The woman gulped. She again looked over her shoulder.
“Lilly,” she said.
“Lilly who?”
But I didn’t need to hear her say the rest. I already knew who she was.
Lilly Sartor. The daughter of Lucius. The daughter of the man most responsible for all of the ills, evils, and downfall of society.
Was she responsible for any of those things? No. In fact, judging by her reaction to us and to how she kept looking over her shoulder, I had good reason to believe she was just as afraid of her father as we were.
But still…
She was a Sartor.
“What the hell are you doing out here right now?” I said. “And why the hell are you running away from your father?”
Her eyes went wide. She was foolish if she thought she could have kept that part of herself from us.
“I’m running away from my father because he’s a tyrant,” she said. “And the longer you keep me here, the more at risk I’m going to be. So let me go.”
“Hold up.”
Patriot came back into the picture, standing by my side. Lilly, too, rose to her feet. Patriot didn’t have his gun cocked at her, but unlike me, he had his by his hip, cradled in both of his hands, ready to be aimed and pulled at a moment’s notice.
“You’re telling me, man, that we got the daughter of Lucius Sartor right in front of us, wanting to escape that motherfucker’s clutches, and we’re just going to let her go?”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry, but you’re too valuable for us to let you walk away. You could provide us with some valuable information.”
“On what, what his favorite dinner dish is?” Lilly said.
I had to admit, if the situation wasn’t so damn serious and the night so thick with tension and finality, it would have been kind of funny. It was probably for the best, though; funny and beautiful was a dangerous combination, especially when it came from someone that felt so forbidden and so... taboo.
“The reason I’m running away is because I have no agency and I don’t know a damn thing,” she said. “I don’t even know how to do my own laundry. You think I can tell you what he’s going to do to you guys?”
“You can tell us about the house,” Patriot said.
“Oh, sure, I’ll tell you what type of marble he uses.”
“Hey, watch your mouth, we’re—”
“Patriot,” I said, cutting him off.
Lilly and I looked at each other. If she was sheltered, it had somehow not eliminated a natural fire and feisty demeanor that permeated the Sartor family. In Lucius, it manifested in violence, but with Lilly, it seemed to appear as friskiness.
“You seriously don’t know anything more?” I said. “I’m not judging, I seriously just cannot believe you don’t know anything about your father.”
Lilly bit her lip. She looked like she wanted to punch Patriot, but to me, she looked... almost frustrated, but not full of hatred. If I was cautiously honest, there seemed to be some sort of a connection manifesting, though I immediately shot that idea down as ludicrous, not anything worth considering.
“Whatever you think of my father, he’s much worse,” she said. “He’s controlling. He’s manipulative. He’s cruel. He’s a liar. And yet…”
He’s her father. That’s not a bond that’s easily broken.
