“Fine,” she says finally in a clipped voice. “What do you want to know?”
Everything.
“Where are you from? Before London, before King’s College.”
A shadow passes across her features before it quickly dissolves. “Richmond, originally. Nice house, nice neighborhood. Parents who worked too much.” She pauses, rubbing her lips together. “My mother died when I was ten. Car accident. My brother too.”
The words land heavy. I know loss, know exactly what shape it leaves in you.
Hollow and yet no shape at all.
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago,” she goes on, her voice carefully flat. “My father moved us to Canada afterward. A small island off Vancouver Island. He worked at a research facility there—very remote, very quiet. Good place to grieve and try to pick up the pieces. Start again.”
“And your brother…? He died with your mother?”
A pained look comes across her brow, enough that I feel sorry for pressing her. “Yes, though they never found his body. The river current was too strong. They searched for days.” She shrugs, but there’s nothing casual about it. “I was home sick that day. A bloody fever. My mum was supposed to take us both somewhere, but I couldn’t go. So she just took Oliver.”
Oliver.
“You wonder,” I say quietly, “what would have happened if you’d been in that car like you were supposed to.”
Her gaze snaps to mine, sharp with surprise. “Yes. For years. Maybe I still do.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” I say with a nod. “I know something about that.”
She’s quiet for a moment, studying me like she’s seeing something new. “Your sister. Emma. I read about her.”
The name still lands like a blow, and I have to swallow down the burst of pain. “What did you read?”
“That she was an activist killed during a raid in 2033. That the official report said she was armed, but no weapons were ever found.” Her voice is careful, neutral. “That you were deployed overseas when it happened.”
“In Syria,” I say, trying to keep my tone neutral. “Got the call at three a.m. By the time I made it stateside, she’d already been cremated. Expedited processing, they called it.”
She nods slowly, and I can tell she wants to say more, know more, the same questions I’ve had since I returned. All those suspicions, the whys. But instead, she says, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I pick up my water glass, turn it in my hands. “She was twenty-five. Beautiful. Smart. So smart. Valedictorian. Had a full scholarship to Georgetown. She wanted to change the world.”
“Maybe she did in a way.”
I think about Emma at seven years old, looking up at me with those trusting eyes.You don’t have to protect me all the time.I think about her at twenty-five, standing on a stage, telling crowds this wasn’t what America was supposed to be.
“She tried,” I say. “Harder than anyone I’ve ever known. And they killed her for it.”
Just then, the milkshakes arrive—enormous glasses topped with whipped cream and cherries. Mia wraps her hands around hers but doesn’t drink. She’s blinking at me like she’s shocked at what I said. Perhaps I am a little too.
“Should that be off the record?”
I give her an appreciative nod and clear my throat. “Some of it. The facts are public. My feelings aren’t.”
“Copy that.”
I switch the subject, having a long pull of my drink. Despite it all, chocolate still makes the world a little sweeter. “How’s yours?” I ask, nodding at her drink.
Mia tentatively wraps her lips around the straw and takes a sip, and fuck, if I’m not picturing her wrapping them around my dick.
As if she can hear what I’m thinking, she looks up at me through her long, dark lashes and holds my gaze.
