Now I scan for her. For them.
My hands are still. That's new.
The afternoon passes in the rhythm we've built. Lily and Julianna on the couch, working through a children's workbook on number sequences. Lily's tongue poking out when she concentrates—a mirror of her mother's expression in photographs I keep locked in a box I haven't opened in two years, and probably never will.
Julianna's voice is patient. Precise. Never condescending.
I make lunch. Grilled cheese. Tomato soup from a can. Lily declares the soup "suboptimal" because Julianna taught her the word yesterday, and Julianna laughs so hard she has to set down her spoon.
It's the third time I've heard her laugh today.
I keep count. I don't mean to. Old training. But this is a number I don't mind tracking.
After lunch, Lily crashes hard—three hours of outdoor running and an hour of math will do that to a six-year-old. I carry her to her room. The one with the purple walls and the dinosaur nightlight.
When I come back to the main room, Julianna is standing at the window. Her hand rests on the glass, fingers splayed. Watching the valley. The creek. The mountains beyond.
I move up behind her. Wrap my arms around her waist. Rest my chin on her shoulder.
She leans back into me. Her weight is familiar now. Expected. The angle of her spine against my chest. The way her head tips to make room for mine.
"Three days." Her voice is quiet, the words dropping softly into the room. Not afraid—she stopped being afraid somewhere around the second time she died on a server room floor. But there's a weight to it.
"I know."
"If they decide?—"
"They won't."
"Colt." She turns in my arms. Her eyes find mine. "You can't know that."
I can't. She's right. The trial is a variable I can't control. The evidence is on our side—the defection documentation, the affidavits, the fact she took a bullet for my daughter, and restarted my heart with her own lungs failing, all while caging a rogue AI.
But juries are unpredictable.
Federal prosecutors are relentless.
The Nexus name still carries weight in certain courtrooms.
I lift my hand. Touch her jaw. Tilt her face up toward mine.
"I know what I saw in that server room." My voice is low. Rough. "I know what you did. What it cost you. What you were willing to give."
Her eyes go bright. She doesn't cry often. I've seen it twice—once in the hallway outside Lily's room, once in the convoy when she thought I wasn't looking.
"I was trying to pay a debt." The words are barely a breath against my skin.
"The debt is paid." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone. "Whatever happens in that courtroom—the math is settled."
She closes her eyes. Turns her face into my palm. Presses her lips against the center of it.
"I have something to tell you." She looks up, her eyes bright with a secret.
My stomach tightens. Instinct. Threat assessment. The old patterns fire before I can stop them.
But she's smiling.
"What?"
