“However bad you think of him as a man, he’s worse as a father,” Lilly said, but there was wavering in her voice. “He wouldn’t let me know anything. I’m sorry, but right now, I just need to get out of here before he sends more men.”
“We can protect you.”
“What?”
Patriot, Lilly, and even Phoenix, wiping his hands on his cut, spoke in shock at the same time.
“We’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “You come with me. I’ll keep you hidden from Lucius for a couple of days. And in return, I want you to tell me everything you know about him. I don’t care how irrelevant you think it is.”
A tense silence followed.
“This is a bad idea, Cole,” Patriot said. “She could be a spy. You know Lucius—”
“Fuck off,” Lilly said. “I don’t know you at all other than what my father said. If what he said was true, you would have gang-raped and killed me by now. But just because you haven’t doesn’t mean I owe you shit.”
But those angry words were directed only at Patriot. Her gaze softened when she turned to me.
“I appreciate it, but I do not need protection, and you don’t want to protect me anyway,” she said. “If my father finds out I was with you, even just hiding in your basement, then you will see a level of evil that you did not even think possible. He’s mad, but he’s calculated. You want to see what my father looks like when he throws precision out the window? Because I don’t. Not for the sake of Springsville.”
I was beginning to feel pissed at myself. I was making decisions to be protective, but protective had a way of turning to paternalistic awfully fast. And if I came back and told Lane that we had never made it to Lucius’ house because we picked up his daughter…
“Fine, just tell me this,” I said. “How guarded is your father’s house? Could the three of us sneak in?”
“No.”
Well, that was a fucking certain response.
“My father hides a lot from me, but I know that place is an impenetrable fortress. When I left, there were many members of his club in there. You just killed two, but there’s more.”
“And you know he’s going to pull more in when he can,” Phoenix said. “We’d get hit from the rear, even if Lane and the rest of the Reapers came.”
“If you go in there, you’re all going to die.”
As I listened to Lilly speak, I knew one thing was definitely true, and I suspected that one other thing was as well. She was not lying about how well-guarded the place was. Perhaps I’d let my ego blind me to what three Reapers could actually do; even if we moved with perfect stealth, we’d get discovered sooner or later.
But less certainly, even though she kept talking about how evil her father was, how controlling he was, how cruel he could be... I didn’t yet believe that there was no part of her that was trying to protect him. I literally could not imagine any child in the world that would want their father dead so willingly; even those who hated their father had to have some level of hope that things could change.
“You want my advice? Bring a larger group.”
“Where are you running to?” I said.
“Anywhere but here,” she snorted.
I looked to Phoenix and Patriot.
“Think she’s telling the truth?” I said.
“There’s no doubt that house is packed to the brim with protection, man,” Patriot said. “But we’re wasting time talking to her. We leave her behind and finish our mission, or we take her with us and leave.”
“Excuse me?”
“There’s no way that the daughter of Lucius is going to walk away from this without us interrogating you some more,” Phoenix said. “We’re not having you turn on us.”
“Fuck off. I just told you I’m running away from him, why the fuck would I go and tell him anything about you assholes? I don’t even know your names.”
“You—”
“Enough!” I snapped.
