He didn’t answer right away.
“You know the farmhouse sequence,” he said finally. “The basement controls.”
“Yes.”
“And you can defend the farmhouse while running them?”
“Yes. I’ve practiced.” Torek had drilled me on it, again and again, until I could work the controls in total darkness while Turnip simulated attacks. I’d hated him for it at the time. Now I understood.
“Then I’ll take the ridge.” He said it simply, like it was obvious. Like there was no other option.
“Kallum. The ridge is more exposed. You’ll be alone up there, wounded, with enemies coming from every direction.”
“I’ll manage.”
“You could die.”
“I could.” He touched my face. His thumb traced my cheekbone, gentle. “But if we don’t try this, we both die anyway. At least this way, there’s a chance.”
He was right. I knew he was right. But knowing didn’t make it easier.
“And after.” The words came out rough. “When we have the key. Where do we go?”
“My ship. My team.” He eyed me carefully now. “They’re waiting.”
I looked past him. Through the kitchen window, the north field was dark, but I knew exactly where the marker stood. The one I’d carved myself, three years ago, when I’d buried the only father I’d ever had.
“The farm,” I said.
“I know.”
“Torek’s grave.”
“I know.”
I’d stopped running here. Built something here. The best years of my life were in these walls, these fields, that patch of dirt in the north field where I talked to a dead man when things got hard.
“Maybe we come back,” I said. “After. When it’s safe.”
He didn’t tell me that was likely. He didn’t lie.
“And if we can’t?”
I thought about it. The farm without Torek. The farm with thirty-two people trying to burn it down. The farm as a grave I couldn’t leave.
Then I thought about the ghost standing in front of me, watching me with those steady red eyes. The one who’d warned me when he could have taken. The one who’d stayed when he could have left.
“Then I’ll have lost two homes,” I said. “But I’ll be alive to lose them.”
His hand tightened on my arm. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.
“Midnight,” I said. “We start at midnight.”
“That gives us six hours.”
Six hours until we separated. Six hours until everything changed.
“You made me a promise,” he said.
