"That's right."
"But I didn't want to add all those numbers. That's boring." She bounces on the chair. "So I looked at it, and I figured out that 1 plus 10 is 11. And 2 plus 9 is 11. And 3 plus 8 is 11."
I go still.
"There are five pairs," Lily continues, oblivious to what she's just done. "Five pairs of 11. And 5 times 11 is 55. So you don't have to add all the numbers. You just find the pairs."
She's discovered the Gaussian sum method. On her own. At six years old.
"Lily." I keep my voice steady. "Did anyone teach you this? Did you see it somewhere?"
"No, I just looked at the numbers." She frowns. "Was it wrong?"
"It's not wrong." I pick up my pen. "It's exactly right."
I draw the check mark in the corner of her paper. She grabs it and slides off the chair, already running toward the hallway.
"Daddy! Daddy, I found a math secret. Julianna said I was right."
Thorne appears in the doorway. He's been there longer than I knew, watching. His eyes meet mine over his daughter's head as she crashes into his legs.
"A math secret, huh?" He scoops her up, his voice shifting into that softer register he reserves for her alone. "What kind of secret?"
"The pairing kind. You find the partners and then you times them. Can I show Forest when he comes back? He'll think it's cool."
"You can show Forest when he comes back."
He carries her away. The warmth in his voice lingers in the kitchen after he's gone.
I return to my screen. The work is done. But there's always more to review, more to verify, more names to count.
The afternoon dissolves into planning.
Ghost comes through twice, conferring with Halo over the tracking database. Talia's maps fill with red dots. Clusters taking shape across the continental United States. The men move in and out, carrying equipment and checking the perimeter.
Thorne is everywhere.
I feel him before I see him most times. That specific weight in the doorway, the particular quality of being tracked. He doesn't speak to me directly. Doesn't approach the table. But his eyes track me the way they track threats: constant, measuring, looking for something he can't quite name.
The hunger is still there. I see it when he looks at the collar of my shirt, knowing what's underneath. I see it when his jaw works once, twice, and he turns away.
It's getting harder for him to hide.
I don't know what that means for either of us. I only know that when his eyes find mine across the room, something in my chest pulls toward him. A gravity I didn't consent to and can't seem to escape.
The remainder of the afternoon disappears under a flurry of activity.
The kitchen empties after dinner.
Martha clears the plates. Talia rolls up her maps. The clusters dense across the West Coast, thinner toward the East. Halo closes his laptop and nods at me before heading down the hall.
I stay at the table.
The work is done, but I can't stop looking at the empty space where my tablet used to be. Talia has it now. The names are out of my hands.
Over four thousand people. Over four thousand Lilys. And I built every pathway that delivered them.
The safe house settles into its nighttime rhythms. Footsteps as people move toward bunks. The low murmur of a perimeter check on the radio. Pipes knocking when the pressure drops.
