Chapter 15
The Primes
THORNE
In the small kitchen, Mom slices oranges for Lily's breakfast.
Not slowly. Not tired.
Efficiently.
The knife moves in steady strokes across the cutting board, the orange peel curling away in neat spirals.
The kitchen behind her looks less like a temporary safe house and more like a command center she's claimed by force of personality.
A pot simmers on the stove, filling the air with the scent of rosemary and garlic: a sharp contrast to the sterile smell of the tech in the other room.
A handwritten list is taped to the fridge, KP rotation in Mom's unmistakable, no-nonsense handwriting.
Ghost, Halo, Brass, and the rest of the team have already been lectured about it. Fuse tried to sneak out of the kitchen earlier, only for Mom to hook him by the elbow and point him toward a stray coffee mug.
Fuse washed dishes last night, with Mom standing over him, arms crossed and a finger waggling under his nose until the counter met her standards.
"Cerberus may run the world, but in this kitchen, you run the sponge. And you run it until that granite shines."
Now she wipes her hands on a towel and glances over her shoulder, her eyes sharp and assessing.
"Colt, honey." My mother slides the plate of oranges onto the counter, gesturing toward the rug. "Lily hasn't eaten her fruit yet. She's too busy with her blocks."
Her tone is light, but her eyes flick briefly toward Stratton as I guide her through the room. Mom sees everything. She sees the way my jaw is set too tight, the way I'm holding Stratton's arm like she's a lifeline and a curse wrapped into one.
I look over at Lily.
She's sitting cross-legged on the rug, surrounded by magnetic tiles in bright colors. A crooked tower leans beside her, a testament to a six-year-old's architectural ambition. A stuffed purple stegosaurus sits at the base like a sentry. She's clutching him, her tongue poked out in concentration.
She rang the bell in the oncology ward.
The fact that she's here at all feels like a miracle.
My grip on Stratton's arm tightens before I realize I'm doing it.
My thumb presses into the soft skin above her elbow, and for a split second, I want to feel her bone snap, just to see if it matches the sound of my heart breaking over the last year.
Pop notices.
He's sitting in the armchair, a stack of magazines under one hand. He isn't reading them. His eyes follow us as we cross the room, landing on my hand where it holds Stratton in place.
There's a flicker there.
Disappointment. It burns worse than Ghost's suspicion, worse than the raw friction still stinging between my legs. I stop beside the couch and hand Stratton off to Brass. My skin feels cold the moment I let go.
"Watch her."
Brass nods once, his expression unreadable.
I move across the room toward the rug. Lily looks up immediately, her face lighting up with a brilliance that makes my chest ache.
"Daddy."
I crouch down beside her, the dark weight in my gut easing just a fraction. The tiles scatter as she launches forward, and I catch her around the middle, lifting her onto my knee.
"What've we got here?" I trace the base of the half-built tower, matching her focus.
"Castle." Lily taps a blue tile, her brows furrowed in absolute seriousness.
Her purple dinosaur thumps against my chest, its tail poking into my tactical vest.
"And these two?" I gesture to the prehistoric guards.
"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.