"Guardians." Lily leans close, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.
Of course they are. Everyone in this house is a guardian, except for the woman sitting ten feet away, who helped build the cage Lily almost died in.
I pick up the green dinosaur and make it stomp toward the tower, my movements practiced and soft. "Guardian dinosaur reporting for duty. Is the perimeter secure?"
Lily giggles, a sound that should be enough to purge the sickness from my mind, and shoves the purple one forward to intercept me. "Mine's the boss. He says you have to help build the bridge."
I play along for a minute, clicking tiles into place while she narrates the dinosaur patrol. It's the closest thing to normal this house has felt in days, a fragile bubble of domesticity surrounded by high-tensile steel and loaded weapons.
Behind us, Pop shifts in his chair. The magazines slide to the floor.
I glance up. He jerks his chin toward the entryway.
"Guard the castle." I stand, ruffling Lily's hair, feeling the fine, soft strands under my palm.
She salutes with the purple dinosaur. "Yes, sir."
I follow Pop toward the door. He doesn't speak right away. He just looks at me with that steady, heavy gaze he's had since I was sixteen and came home with my first busted knuckle.
"What's going on between you and that woman?" Pop folds his arms, his quiet words carrying a weight that stops me in my tracks.
I keep my voice low, my eyes darting back to the rug. "Pop …"
His gaze flicks toward Lily, then back to me. He knows I won't say the specifics in front of her. He knows exactly what Stratton's signature meant for our bank account and Lily's medical charts.
"You know what she did." The words are gravel in my throat.
He studies my face for a long moment, reading the tension in my shoulders and the lingering, frantic energy I haven't been able to shake since the shower.
He sighs softly. "I know that look in your eyes."
I stiffen. "What look?"
"The one that shows up when you're standing at a crossroads you don't want to admit is there. You're looking at her like she's a target, but you're holding her like she's the only thing keeping you upright."
"There's no crossroads. She's an asset. Once she's done, she's gone."
"There's always a crossroads." Pop holds my gaze, his tone calm and terrifyingly certain. "That woman hurt your family. That much is clear. But hatred … Hatred is an unstable fuel, son."
I don't answer. I can still feel the ghost of her arm under my hand.
He rests a hand on my shoulder, squeezing once. "It burns hot. It burns fast. And half the time it takes everybody else with it when it explodes. It makes you crave the very thing you should be trying to burn down."
I meet his eyes again, looking for a way out of the conversation. "You think I don't know what I'm doing? You think I'm going to let her walk?"
Pop shakes his head. "I think you know exactly what you're doing. You've always made the right call when the moment came, even when it cost you. I'm trusting you'll do it again."
His gaze drifts briefly toward the hallway where Stratton disappeared with Brass.
"Just—be careful." Pop's hand drops from my shoulder. "Hatred makes a man do things that love never could. Don't let your loathing for her turn into something that breaks the very things you're trying to protect."
Pop's words haunt me.
The truth is, I'm already caught in the loop. I hate her for what she did, and I hate myself for the way my body reacts to her surrender. I'm not sure which fire is going to consume me first.
16
The Dark
