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“And you’re not giving it to him.”

“Fuck no.”

I turn back toward the trees, toward the dark that already learned Selah’s name and hesitated.

“She didn’t stop,” Lucas says. Not accusation. Fact.

“No,” I agree. “But neither would Selah.”

“Yet, you’re taking her anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Because you think she can handle it.”

“No,” I say quietly. “Because she already is.”

Lucas studies the trees, the dark, the place the woods hesitated.

“They think she’s becoming a weapon,” he says.

“They’re wrong.”

Weapons get wielded.

“She’s becoming a verdict, and verdicts don’t give a fuck who’s innocent.”

Lucas’s mouth curves, sharp and satisfied. “I’ll erase the route,” he says. “And everyone who knew how to find it.”

“Find all of them.” My voice goes quiet, and that’s when Lucas stops moving. “Burn the routes. Salt the scripture.”

I look toward the trees, toward every rotten thing they think still belongs to them.

“I want their holy ground to forget it was ever blessed.”

“And Selah?”

“I won’t keep her from the truth again.” The promise tastes like blood. “And I refuse to make a cage out of loving her.”

Thunder splits the sky close enough to feel—no distance left to hide in.

In the woods, something shifts.

Then freezes.

Waiting.

They think Selah is the price of my survival.

They’re wrong.

She’s the thing that makes the debt come due, and I’m done paying in other peoples bones.

XXIX

The Cost of Being Chosen

Idraw a slow breath and let it settle, watch Malek and Lucas without really seeing them as separate men—just two shapes cut from readiness. Nothing loose. Nothing wasted. Whatever’s coming, they’re already standing inside it.