Yet.
Chapter Seventeen: Jinx
Theboardingschoollooksnothing like a facility.
Red brick. Ivy climbing the walls. A sprawling lawn that's gone wild from neglect, grass swaying in the Geneva breeze. The kind of place that should hold memories of childhood summers and first loves and the particular cruelty of adolescent social hierarchies.
Instead, it holds broken children and the people trying to piece them back together.
Elliot meets us at the door. He looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, his usually neat appearance rumpled and worn. But he's smiling, and that smile says everything.
"They're doing better than expected," he says as we follow him inside. "Most of them are eating. A few are starting to talk. The medical team says the physical injuries are manageable."
"And the rest?" Asher asks. "The conditioning?"
"That's going to take time. Years, probably. But we're already making progress." Elliot leads us through a corridor lined with closed doors, each one painted a different color. "We let them choose their rooms. Pick their own things. Small choices, but important ones. They've never had choices before."
I know that feeling. The first time someone asked what I wanted instead of telling me what to do, I froze for a full minute. Couldn't process the question. Couldn't understand that my preference mattered.
"Where's Lily?"
Elliot's smile widens. "She's been asking for you all morning. Wouldn't eat breakfast until we promised you were coming." He stops at a door painted bright yellow, knocks twice. "Lily? Someone's here to see you."
The door opens a crack. A single eye appears, dark and wary, scanning the hallway for threats.
Then the door flies open and Lily launches herself at me.
I catch her on instinct, arms wrapping around her small body as she slams into my chest. She's crying, hot tears soaking through my shirt, her thin arms locked around my neck with a grip that borders on painful.
"You came back." Her voice is muffled against my shoulder. "You said you would and you came back."
"I told you I would." I hold her tight, one hand cradling the back of her head. She's so small. So fragile. This girl who held a knife to a man's throat twelve hours ago is actually skin and bones. "I don't break my promises."
"Everyone breaks promises." She pulls back enough to look at me, her face streaked with tears. "The doctors promised it wouldn't hurt. The handlers promised it would get easier. Everyone lied."
"I'm not them." I crouch down so we're eye level, take her hands in mine. Her fingers are cold, bird-boned, trembling. "I know what they did to you. I know how hard it is to trust anyone after that. But I'm not going to hurt you, and I'm not going to leave you. Not ever."
She stares at me. Searching my face for the lie. The betrayal she's been trained to expect.
The wariness doesn't disappear, but it softens.
"Can I stay with you?" The words come out small. "When this is over? Can I stay with you and not go back to a facility?"
My throat tightens. I think about all the reasons this is a terrible idea. The violence in my past, the violence still to come. The fact that I don't know the first thing about raising a child. The nightmares that wake me screaming, the rage that still lives under my skin, the thousand ways I could fuck this up.
Then I think about her face in that office. The knife trembling in her hand. The way she collapsed into my arms when I told her she had a choice.
"Yeah." The word comes out on a rasp. "You can stay with me. Us."
Her face transforms. The tight lines around her mouth dissolve. Her eyes go wide, wet, and she throws herself at me again. This time I'm ready for it. I hold her and let her cry and pretend I don't notice Asher wiping his eyes behind us.
"Lily." Elliot's voice is gentle, careful. "Jinx has some things he needs to do. Important things. But he'll be back soon."
"How soon?"
I pull back, meet her eyes. "Three days. I have to help my brothers with something. But when it's done, I'm coming back here. And Asher and I will take you home."
"Promise?"
