Fuck it.

I got up and went into the living room. It was a one-bedroom apartment and even after Greg’s death, the bedroom belonged to him and his memories. It was his space. When I lived here, I always slept on the couch in the living room, which was why Curran had put a bed here. And of course, it was almost four feet high, and you needed a ladder to crawl onto it.

I would give almost anything for him to be on that bed right now making fun of me.

I opened the windows, unlocked the bars, and let the night in. Why the hell not. It wasn’t like anyone would come to bother me anyway. I took off the leather harness with Sarrat in it and put it on the night table. I pulled off my boots and sat on the bed. I kept thinking my father would wreck my life, but no, turned out it was all me.

A hand gripped the windowsill.

Now I was seeing things.

Curran vaulted into the room, human and dressed. He came over and sat next to me.

“Stopped by the house?”

“I tailed you to make sure you got there in one piece. Talked to the kids after you left. Thought you would be at Cutting Edge, but you weren’t. This was the next place. Would’ve gone to the Savannah house after that.”

“Trained detective.”

“That’s right.”

We sat side by side. Outside the window the stars winked at us.

“I leave to clear my head and you run away from the house,” he said.

“I didn’t run away.” Yep, I totally did.

We sat quietly for a few more moments.

“I wanted to tell you about Adora.”

“I understand why you might want to hold things back. We both deal with fucked-up shit and we try to shield each other. I don’t like it, but I get it, because I’ve done it before and I can’t swear I won’t do it again. But I don’t understand why you hid her. Derek and Julie tried to explain it to me, but neither of them made sense. Did you think I wouldn’t listen to you? I’ve always been cool. I might not like things that you did, but I always listen, Kate. What made you think I would lose it?”

I sighed. “I hid her, because I would have to explain why I didn’t kill her.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because her existence made me so mad, my hands shook. I wasn’t mad because what was done to her was wrong. I was mad because my father dared to send her into my territory to take what was mine. I wanted to hurt him. If I’d had a knife and could’ve reached him in that moment, I would’ve sliced all the flesh off his bones. You have no idea how much I wanted to do it. I took her away from my father, because I wanted to send a big ‘Fuck You’ his way. Her life at that point didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care that she was a person. She was a thing. She was my father’s toy and I took her away so I could taunt him with her. I almost made her into a slave. I only stopped because some switch flipped in my brain and I realized you wouldn’t like it. Enslaving her goes against everything I stand for. That’s not me. That’s not who I am. I should’ve stopped because of that. I didn’t want to explain it to you. I didn’t want you to know this about me.”

I didn’t look at him. There. It was all out.

“Why didn’t you let her go on the bridge? Would’ve ended all the questions.”

I sighed. “Because it would be wrong. Everything that happened to her was wrong. It’s wrong to buy children, it’s wrong to stick them into a fortress and make them into killers, it’s wrong to promise them that they will get into paradise if they obey you, it’s wrong to order them to kill people, it’s wrong to bind them with your blood, which you told them is holy, and it’s wrong to break that binding because you’re engaged in a pissing contest with your father. She’s a person. She is me, Curran, or at least what Voron wanted me to be. My father didn’t come up with this idea out of the blue. He watched Voron teach Hugh and he simply improved on the concept and mass-produced it.”

He waited.

“She wanted to throw away her life for me, but I don’t deserve her life or her loyalty. The moment I chose to take her away from my father and let her live, I became responsible for her. You saw her. The only time she was allowed into the world was when there was a target and a handler. She deserves to have a life and to be free. If she understood things as they actually are, she wouldn’t sacrifice herself for me. She’d spit in my face. I want to give her a chance. I owe her a chance. Even if you’d told me at that moment that you would leave me if I let her live, I would’ve saved her. It was the right thing to do. My thing. I couldn’t drop her, Curran. I couldn’t.”

“Of course you couldn’t.”

“It’s complicated.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s pretty simple, actually. You didn’t drop her, because that’s not who you are, Kate. Because you will fight for her freedom and her life. Yes, it is a mess and it’s yours to fix. Running away from all of this and pouting by yourself in your old apartment isn’t the best way to deal with it.”

Pouting? I looked at him. “Why are you here? Weren’t you walking away the last time I saw you?”

“I walked away because I needed to clear my head and figure out what the hell was going on. And because I was so angry, I couldn’t see straight. I killed that asshole and I still wanted to keep killing. The rage wouldn’t stop. Then I cooled off, I talked to Adora and the kids, and realized that tonight was the first time I had seen the real you in days. You found another misfit with no place to go and were ready to protect her with everything you had.”

“I didn’t . . .”

“Yeah, you did. You’re like a crazy cat lady, but you collect killers instead of fluffy cats.”

“I don’t collect killers.”

“Yes, you do, and those who aren’t killers turn into killers by the time you’re done. You made Julie into a maniac. That child has more knives on her than a squad of the PAD. Christopher was the only stray who couldn’t fight, and now it turns out he’s a god of terror. Why am I not surprised?”

“I don’t need to listen to this.” I had enough guilt as it was.

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “What am I going to do with you? You’re a walking catastrophe.”

“Get the hell out of my apartment!”