I nod and raise my head. A sour taste collects on the tip of my tongue, words I don’t intend to speak. More hate. More bitterness. Though all I truly have for my sister is love.
My eyes draw to the hiking bag.
“I’m sorry,” Zephyr says, more convincing than before. “I know Father is expecting blood to be shed for Sawyer leaving the compound, but Luna, you know… He had no intention of escaping until he got the money.”
“So you admit that you helped him leave.”
“I made a judgment call in your absence. The same one you would’ve made… I saw the trafficker’s face when he found one of the rejected infants. If I hadn’t helped him rectify the situation, our chance of earning his trust would be fruitless.”
The scenario plays through my mind as I take my place on the couch, my fingertips tugging a loose thread in the seam of Sawyer’s hoodie. No matter what angle I look from, I come to the same conclusion as Zephyr. In a way, I already did—when I chose not to punish him for his infractions.
And yet…
It changes nothing.
“How did you know about the weak spot in the fence?”
A pause—short, only the briefest of moments.
But enough.
“I didn’t.”
She didn’t.
“Sawyer showed it to me.”
“How did he get a shovel to dig the hole?”
Zephyr pauses a second time, longer than the first.Toolong. I watch as her mind spasms, searching through each scenario for the right answer. There is only one. She’s already lost it.
“I told him where to find it.” Her chin lifts as though it could distract me from her whitening complexion.
I nod. But I’m so far from satisfied, my eyelids feel heavy, my jaw weighted with cold steel.
How many people did my sister allow to crawl through that hole before Sawyer Hansley? How many times has she promoted crime just to smite me?
I don’t wish to know.
“I know I should’ve told you about all of this.” Her voice fills with innocence—with girlish charm that’s ruined too many men. “I was just scared. You know Father’s temper…”
“I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
She chews on her lip, her face solemn. Regretful. Fake, probably.
“Can you forgive me?” she asks.
A sigh drags from the depths of my lungs, my chest dipping low. “Of course, Zephyr… You’re my sister. I love you more than almost anything.”
“Almost,” she chuckles, wiping beneath her dry eyes.
I give her a sad smile and don’t elaborate.
My blood means much to me. But nothing could ever come before my people.
