Welcome to the family, I don't say.
You're not getting out of this, I also don't say.
I get closer to her.
"Relax," I murmur, low enough that only she can hear. "She's not going to hurt you. She's going to feed you until you can't move and then send you home with leftovers."
"That's supposed to be comforting?"
"It's the truth."
Lily is watching my mother with suspicious fascination, still clutching her rabbits like a shield.
Aria asks her who are those sweet bunnies she’s holding. Lily tells her.
"Bunny, Bunbun, and Sir Floppington," my mother says, crouching down to Lily's eye level. "What beautiful names. Did you choose them yourself?"
Lily nods slowly.
"You have excellent taste." My mother holds out her hand. "I'm Aria. Would you like to see my garden? I have a fountain with fish in it."
Lily looks at her mother. Then at me. Then back at Aria.
"Real fish?"
"Very real. Orange ones and white ones and one grumpy black one who doesn't like anyone."
Lily considers this. Then she reaches out and takes my mother's hand.
Kristen makes a sound. Small, strangled, somewhere between relief and terror. Her daughter just willingly went with a stranger into a house that might as well be a fortress. A house full of people who do terrible things.
I should feel guilty about this.
I don't.
"She'll be fine," I tell Kristen. "My mother would die before letting anything happen to a child."
"I barely know your mother."
"You saved her life. That makes you a member of the family for her now."
Kristen's eyes snap to mine. "I don't want to be family."
"Too bad." I gesture toward the hallway where my mother and Lily have disappeared.
Kristen
The foyer stretches before me. It comes out of a magazine. Crystal chandeliers hang from ceilings so high they could swallow my entire apartment. Twice.
Don't touch anything. You can't afford to replace it.
I stand frozen near the door, watching Aria disappear with Lily toward whatever magical garden exists in this place. My daughter's excited voice sounds off walls that probably cost more than I'll make in my lifetime.
Nico stands a few feet away, his posture rigid. The tension radiating off him says everything.
He doesn't want me here.
Good. Makes two of us.
