Chapter 11
Ellie
Knox made the call this morning. Bruiser's said the scouts are east of the county line, pulling back. Patrols continue but the deadbolts come off. Families can move and we no longer need to be in lockdown. We can go back to our homes later today.
Colt hasn't come out of the office since breakfast.
He ate standing up—toast, black coffee, no eye contact.
Asked Lily if she slept okay, kissed the top of her head, and disappeared down the hallway.
The office door closed behind him and hasn't opened in two hours.
I'm on my second cup of coffee at the kitchen table, listening and telling myself it doesn't mean anything.
Lily turns the page and wrinkles her nose.
She's cross-legged on the clubhouse couch with a paperback from my car, the one I keep in the glovebox for oil changes and dentist appointments.
She picked it up an hour ago without asking, cracked the spine open, and hasn't looked up since.
She reads the way Colt reads. I wonder if she knows she does that.
Lily wrinkles her nose again.
"That bad?" I ask.
"She's going back to him." Lily holds the book up. "The guy lied to her for three chapters. Why is she going back?"
"Because it's chapter seven and the author needs them together for the plot to work."
"That's lazy writing."
I take a sip of coffee to hide the laugh. "It really is."
She puts the book face-down on her knee and looks at me. "Do you have anything where the girl doesn't forgive the guy?"
"I have a shelf at the library. Whole section of women choosing themselves."
"Can we go?"
"When your dad says it's safe."
"You organize the graphic novels wrong, by the way."
I set my coffee down. "Excuse me?"
"They should be in fiction. Not in their own section. Nobody walks to a separate section for graphic novels."
I've organized graphic novels in a standalone section since I got here. She's twelve and she might be right. "I'll think about it."
"I'm right."
She picks the book back up. Keeps reading it, even though she doesn't like it, because she'll finish what she started even if it annoys her. After a few pages she shifts on the couch, resettling, and her shoulder presses against mine. She doesn't move away. Neither do I.
Finn comes through the kitchen doorway carrying a plate with something on it that might be eggs.
"Lil." He sets the plate on the coffee table. "Made you breakfast."
Lily looks at the plate and then looks at Finn. "What is it?"
"Eggs."
"Why are they grey?"
Finn crosses his arms. "They're not grey. They're... lightly seasoned."
"With what?"
"I don't know. Stuff from the cabinet." He drops onto the armchair across from us. The frame groans. "Jess said I need to learn to cook before the baby comes. She said, and I quote, 'Our child will not survive on protein bars and gas station burritos.'"
I press my lips together. Lily catches my eye.
"Finn," Lily says. "You put cumin on scrambled eggs."
"Is that bad?"
"Well, it's not great."
Finn scrubs a hand over his face. "I grilled a steak last week and she said the smoke detector doesn't count as a timer."
Lily picks up a fork and takes a bite and chews. Her expression stays flat, which is generous of her. "It's fine."
"Yeah?"
"No. But I'll eat it because you tried." She takes another bite. "You should ask Sarah to teach you. She can actually cook."
Finn points at her. "You're a lot like your dad, you know that?"
Lily doesn't look up. "People keep saying that."
Finn leans back. "It's not a compliment."
"It is when I say it," I tell him.
Lily eats the grey eggs. I drink my coffee.
For ten minutes nobody talks about the attack or the security rotation or the spray paint on the house.
Lily asks Finn if the baby is a boy or a girl and he says they don't know yet and she tells him he should find out because it's better to plan.
He says Jess wants it to be a surprise. Lily says Jess is wrong.
Finn laughs hard enough that Rex sticks his head around the corner to check.
Rex looks at the plate on the table and then at Finn. "Did you cook?"
"Why does everyone say it like that?"
Rex leaves without comment.
"Does your dad ever embarrass you?" Finn asks.
Lily keeps eating. "He sings in the car."
"What does he sing?"
"Fleetwood Mac. The whole album. He does the harmonies."
Finn stares at her. I press my coffee cup against my mouth because if I open it I'm going to lose it.
"The harmonies," Finn says.
"The Stevie Nicks parts." Lily takes another bite. "He's not bad. He just thinks nobody can hear him."
"I'm bringing this up at the next cookout."
"He'll kill you."
"Worth it."
Lily's eyes cut toward the hallway. The door is still closed. She looks back at her plate and stabs a piece of egg with her fork.
Colt comes out twenty minutes later. He doesn't sit. He stands in the hallway with his arms crossed and his reading glasses pushed up on his head and talks to Finn about the patrol rotation like I'm not in the room.
Then he looks at me. Not the way he did two days ago, or in the dark with Lily between us.
"Knox is arranging for you to stay at his and Sarah's for a few days. Until the patrols are settled."
"What?"
"It's safer."
He turns away. Finn glances at me. Lily puts her fork down.
I stand up.
"Lily, stay with Finn."
I follow Colt down the hallway and catch the door before it closes.
"Don't." He doesn't turn around. "Ellie, don't, please."
I step inside and shut the door behind me. He's standing behind the desk with his back to me, both hands flat on the surface, his head down.
"You haven't looked at me all morning," I say. "You won't sit in the same room. And now you're sending me to Knox and Sara's like I'm something you can order around."
"It's not—"
"You're not protecting me. You're deciding for me." My voice stays level but my hands shake. I put them behind my back. "That's what Derek did."
He turns around. The look on his face tells me that landed where I aimed it.
"Don't you dare compare me to him."
"Then stop acting like him."
The room goes quiet. Colt pulls his glasses off his head and sets them on the desk. He sits down in the chair.
"The photograph," he says. "The one they left on Lily's door."
"What about it?"
"You were in it." He looks at his hands. "They know about you because of me." His voice drops. "And I know what it costs to lose someone. I can't do it again, Ellie."
I don't move. I don't speak.
"That's what this is," I say. "You're not angry. You're terrified."
"I'm both."
"Colt—"
"I can't do it again." He presses his palms against his eyes. "I can't lose another person I love."
The door opens.
Lily stands in the doorway. She looks at her father and then she looks at me standing against the wall, she stands there like she already knows.
"Mom would be so mad at you right now," she says.
Colt drops his hands.
"She'd be so mad, Dad. I can see what you're doing. I'm twelve, not stupid."
Colt stares at his daughter. His mouth opens and nothing comes out.
Lily turns to me. "Are you going to be around? Like, for real? Is this what you want, to be with us as a family?"
My throat tightens. "I want to be. If that's okay with you."
She pulls at the hem of her shirt and wraps the thread around her finger. "My friend Maya's mom got a boyfriend and Maya said he tried too hard to be her dad and it was weird." She looks up. "You don't try too hard. You just... you're just here. You talk to me like I'm a person."
"You are a person."
"Yeah, but grown-ups don't always notice."
Colt hasn't moved from the chair. His face is wrecked.
Lily looks at her father. "I want her to stay, Dad."
Colt stands and crosses the room. He puts his hand on Lily's head, and she tips her face up to look at him the way she's probably looked at him her whole life—waiting for him to catch up.
"Okay," he says. "Okay, Lil."
Finn appears behind Lily. He read the room or he heard enough. "Hey, kid. Come show me how to make eggs that aren't grey. I need the help and you need to stop making adults cry before lunch."
Lily rolls her eyes but she gets up. At the door she stops and turns around.
"Ellie?"
"Yeah?"
"You'd fight about book endings with me, right? Not just agree because I'm a kid?"
"I'd fight you on every single one."
She nods like that settles it and disappears into the kitchen. Finn follows her, and the sound of his voice—"Okay so what's wrong with cumin?"—fades down the hall.
The room empties out to just me and Colt. He's standing in the middle of the room with his arms at his sides.
"I'm not going to Knox and Sarah's. I don't belong with them," I say.
"I know."
"And I'm not Maren. What happened to her isn't going to happen to me."
"You can't promise that."
"No. But I can promise I'm not leaving and I won't stand in your way to protect me."
He nods. Rubs the bridge of his nose where the glasses sit. When he looks at me his eyes are red and he doesn't try to hide it.
"The bite," he says. "I can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I need you to know that."
"I know."
"And you're still here."
"I'm still here, Colt."
"Ellie."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for loving my kid."
He disappears down the hall. I sit in the office chair he left warm and listen to Lily teaching Finn how to cook. Finn says he doesn't understand what medium heat means. Lily says it means the middle one, Finn, that's why it's called medium. I laugh hard enough to spill my coffee.