Sloane Briallen

I didn’t think I had ever met anyone in my life who made me as frustrated as Karhi Fucking Emelyn.

We were finally at a point where we tolerated each other.  I would have even gone far enough to say that we were becoming friends.  We were coming to understand each other and the ways we had both been hurt.

And then this happened.  Whatever this was.  His enormous spiral of shame and self-loathing that somehow related to me but also went far beyond me.  I wasn’t stupid.  I knew that the ways that Ilona had fucked him up were vast and endless.  I knew his obsession with apologizing to me for turning me into a vampire really didn’t have a thing to do with me.   

But I couldn’t fucking talk to people who wouldn’t talk to me.  Outside of getting Matadi’s history, Karhi hadn’t said a useful thing to me since the morning we talked in the breezeway.  He had been worthless in my struggle about Alice.  Worthless when I had lost my shit in the dining hall.  Overall, he was turning out to be the biggest disappointment as a sire.  Certainly not the biggest disappointment in my life, but I had hoped I could at least rely on him a bit in the siring department since he had, you know, sired me.

“This is what I get for putting my trust in a man,” I growled to Mira as I stalked down the hall.  I didn’t really know where I was going, but I was going to get as far away from Karhi as I possibly could.

“They do prove to be disappointing,” she agreed.  “With the exception of Mikko.”

“With the exception of Mikko,” I agreed.

“I was also always a big fan of Mickey.”

I stopped in my stride to glare at her.  “Mira,” I said in a warning tone.

“What?” she shot back.  “I’m not going to lecture you on what you should or shouldn’t do about those boys, but I will tell you what I know.  They love you.  More than almost anyone else in their lives.  And yes, love alone won’t fix nothing, but I know, for you, that counts for a lot.  That sort of unbridled, uninhibited love.  The kind of love me or Mikko or Annie—hell, even the kids—have for you, and you for us.  It’s the same with them.  And they fucked up, bad.  But it wasn’t because they didn’t care.”

That knocked the wind out of my sails, and I deflated.  Because I knew she was right.  I knew that they loved me.  I knew they tried to do what they thought was best.  I knew that they were trying to make it right.

I knew all of this, but it still didn’t feel like enough.  I still felt alone and unwanted and unloved.

They still abandoned me.

“Excuse me?”

We looked up in surprise to see Hazel walking towards us.  I hadn’t even sensed her.  Nor had Mira, it appeared.  Perks of being over a thousand years old and being on your home turf, I guess?

“Sorry, your Majesty,” Mira said.  Her hand reached for mine, lacing our fingers together.  “We were just leaving.”  We weren’t far from Hazel’s quarters.

“Actually,” she said, “Sloane, if you have a moment, I was hoping to speak with you.”

I glanced at Mira, who didn’t say anything, but I felt her encouragement where she touched my hand.  She jutted her chin out toward Hazel, telling me to go without saying anything.

“Uh, okay, yeah.”  Why did the Queen of the Living Vampires want to talk to me?

Mira squeezed my hand warmly before saying, “I’m gonna go sleep for a bit.  I’ll see you later.”

“Sure.”  I realized I had no idea what time it was.  The sky I could see from the few windows in this hallway told me it was still night, but the light was saying not for long.  Maybe six AM?

Mira left, and it was just me and Hazel.  I didn’t know where I was supposed to look or what I was supposed to do.

“Walk with me?” she asked.

I wanted to ask if I was allowed to say no but I thought better of it.  Hazel didn’t really make me uncomfortable the way that other living vampires did.  She had a more quiet, calm way about her.  I was still wary of her, but I didn’t feel like I was in danger or about the be in danger with her.  There was no reason to be petulant for no reason.

My subconscious would be so proud of me for thinking ahead.

“Sure,” I said.

We walked side-by-side in silence until we came to a door that she opened for me.  I went through first, and we were on the outer perimeter wall.

Dawn was lightening the sky.  The mountains hid it well, but I could see pale pinks and yellows peaking around them.  The sky above us was still dark.

“I would ask you how your stay has been, but I’m fully aware of how it’s been and from what I know of you, you wouldn’t appreciate the disingenuous small talk.”

I smirked.  “You’re not wrong.”

“I’ve heard that my son has been causing you trouble.”

“Attempted murder is definitely causing trouble.”

She winced.  “I have spoken with him.  If he causes you any further trouble, please alert me.”

“No offense, but your son is an asshole with the biggest ego I’ve ever seen.  I don’t entirely trust him to listen to you.  And it sounds like you don’t either.”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

“You have like, some sort of triumvirate, right?”

“Yes, Matadi, Aoife, and I all work together to rule the kingdom.”

I shook my head.  “No.  Your kids.”

“Ah,” she said.  There was something in her voice that I couldn’t decipher.  It didn’t sound happy.  “Yes.  That was my intention.  I don’t know if it still holds.”

I glanced down at her, raising an eyebrow. She came up to just below my shoulders.  She was looking out towards the woods now.  I walked on the inside, towards the courtyard, while she walked on the side facing the forest.  It had snowed earlier in the day and the top of the parapet was mostly unbroken snow. 

“I have reasons to believe the my eldest doesn’t plan on moving forward to rule the kingdom.  I’m anticipating a renouncement soon.”

I grimaced.  “Yikes.  So we’re left with Prince Cyly and Prince Di—Prince Saeran.”

She look at me.  “What were you about to call him?”

I shook my head.  “Nothing appropriate.  Thought better of it when I remembered that one, I’m talking about a prince.  Two, I’m talking to his mother.”

“Were you about to call him Prince Dickhead?”

I pressed my lips together.  “I am not saying one way or another.”

“I’ve heard him called worse.”

I glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.  “You have?”

“When people think I’m out of earshot.  And also by his brother and sister.  Whatever you call him, I assure you, I’ve heard worse.” 

“Yeah . . . well, I saw Reservoir Dogs at an impressionable age so . . .”

Hazel grimaced.  “I walked out of the theatre.  I don’t believe in torture when I have the resources to do other things first.”

“Yeah . . . I blocked that out.”

“For the best.”

“I have to admit—never would have pegged you for someone to see a Tarantino movie.”

“I watch movies,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but . . . I thought queens went to the opera and stuff like that.”

“We do.  And we watch movies.”

“Oh.”  I guess they couldn’t always be posh and highbrow.

The sound of a cellphone ringtone went off from Hazel’s pocket.  She pulled it out, glanced at the message on the screen, and shot off a quick response.  “Sorry,” she said, putting it back in.  “Someone always needs me.”

“No,” I shook my head.  “I’m just amazed you can use a touch screen phone.”

“I live in the same century as you,” she pointed out. “I know how to work a computer, use the Internet, and everything.  If you expect to live in this century, you have to know those sorts of things.”

She was right, of course.  I knew it, but it was just hard to grasp that she understood all this stuff so well.  I always thought of older vampires as frozen in time.  Even though I lived with an older vampire who had a lot of tech.

Then something occurred to me.  “Do you have the same problem human families have where your kids are all knowledgeable, and you’re a Neanderthal with electronics when you’re compared to them?”

She laughed.  “With Cyly, yes.  He’s a programmer—says it keeps things interesting.  He’s actually one of the people who worked on the security system for our castle back home, and the one here.”

“That’s pretty cool.”

She nodded.  “And Cailean got some . . . it started with a Z . . .or maybe a K?”

“Xbox 360?”

She snapped her fingers.  “That.  She got some mat thing for it and dances on it . . .”

“Dance Dance Revolution?”

“That.”

I stared at Hazel.  “You’re telling me the princess plays DDR.”

“No one will believe you if you tell them.”

She was probably right.  “And Saeran?” I asked.

“He’s less technologically inclined.”

That sounded more like an insult than anything else.  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Why?”

“He seems more like the type to smash a phone because it pissed him off than troubleshoot,” I shrugged.  I glanced at her to see if that upset her.

She didn’t seem bothered by my words.  She was more pensive.  “Aoife told me about your interaction.  And Cailean told me about your fight.”

I waited to see if she was going to reprimand me because I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be getting into fights with her kids, but none came.  Instead, she said, “I did speak with him.  I don’t ever want to hear about him trying to pulverize you into the ground again.”

I shrugged one shoulder.  “I’m scrappy.  I could have pulled myself out.”

She glanced at me.  “You seem confident in your abilities.”

I shrugged again.  “Aoife isn’t the only war general in my life.”  I realized what I said.  Fortunately, I had recently gone through a Kubrick phase.  Even though I hated his movies.  “You know.  Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove, and whatnot.”

Her face twisted in a grimace.  “I would suggest not looking to him for leadership.  I wouldn’t use any of that movie as a lesson in anything aside from hubris.”

“Well, I was worried about my fluids.”  I squeezed my eyes shut, registering what I was saying to the Queen of the Living Vampires.  “Christ, can we talk about something other than that movie?  I hate it.”

“You brought it up.”

“Please put me out of my misery.”

She chuckled.  “I would like to hear your thoughts on my son.”

“Cyly’s great.”

She glanced at me, giving me a very familiar rebuking-mother face.  “I know.  Not him.”

I bit my lip.  “All due respect, your Majesty . . . I’d like to keep my head on my shoulders.”

“You believe your words would anger me?”

“I’m nineteen.  I know fuck all about politics and royalty and all of that.  I doubt I have much to contribute.”

“Humor me.”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye.  “If I upset you?”

“It’s unlikely you could upset me, but if it would make you feel better—I give you my word that there will be no current or future consequences for what you say in this conversation, defined as ending when you and I part ways.”

Well, that was a big fucking promise to make.  Giving someone your word was magically binding.  It would have serious ramifications if broken.

Also, her eyes had shaded to a sky blue.  Darker colors seemed to signify anger while lighter was neutral or unbothered or even positive.  I guess I could trust that?  I had seen it on Cailean and Cyly, anyway.  Though Hazel’s eyes didn’t really seem to shift as much as her childrens’ did. 

I searched her face for a minute before I finally said, “He’s not a leader.”

“Go on.”  Her tone continued to be neutral.

“There’s a difference in the way you command respect and the way he does.  Your very presence commands respect.  Not just your power and prestige—the way you hold yourself.”

She nodded, waiting for me to continue.

“He literally commands that people respect him.  Not with his actions or how he holds himself, but by telling them with words. 

“My experience with you is limited, but my experience with Aoife is extensive.  She has always respected you, and I’ve always liked her.  I trust her judgment.

“And Mira trusts you.  You contracted with her, and worked with her, a shapeshifter, and the shapeshifter’s lawyer to negotiate terms.”

Hazel huffed a laugh out of her nose.  “Yes.  The private investigator.  He was tough.”

I smiled, thinking about Amos.  I didn’t know how the negotiations went, but I knew Amos.  He would have been ruthless in his pursuit to make sure that Mira was safe.  “Yeah.  He’s always been there for us.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything more.

“Mira’s told me about some of the stuff you’ve done in your own courts.  I hear you’re harder on your own vampires than the vampire courts are.  You have a sense of honor, but you don’t let it be the only thing that rules.  And you don’t go after anyone who may insult your ego because, as far as I can see, you understand that there is a difference between genuinely wanting to protect your kingdom and just wanting to defend your pride.

“Prince Saeran . . . is not the same.  He wants respect, admiration, adoration—all of those things that come with wanting people to worship him as if he were a god.  He forces it.  He threatens and becomes enraged when someone won’t submit.  He has temper tantrums.” 

I fell quiet, waiting to see if she said anything in response.

She did, after mulling it over for a few moments.  We had walked half the castle perimeter at that point.  “You believe this is my fault?”

I shrugged.  “Everyone’s a product of their birth and upbringing, right?  But how a person chooses to be is on them once they reach a certain age.  I can’t imagine you taught him to be arrogant.  Your daughter does act entitled.  If what she tried to do to me is any indication.  She’s definitely a princess, and she knows it.  But she also apologized to me.  Something I wasn’t expecting or honestly even thought she would have the capacity for.”

Hazel smiled, just the slightest quirk of one corner of her mouth, but it was there.  It was fond.

“Cyly has a human fiancé, something I know your court absolutely adores.  I like him.  I spent some time with him before the whole . . . incident.  He and Faolan are obviously real, genuine friends.  Alice loves him, and Alice is cool.  He doesn’t give me any scuzzy feelings.  He seems level-headed.

“All of which is to say that of all your children, I like one, am okay with the other, and do not get along with the third.  So no, I don’t think all of what Saeran has grown up to be is your fault.  Because you have two other children who are different enough.  I think there was a disconnect somewhere.  Maybe he was raised slightly differently or someone got to him too early.  Middle child syndrome or something.  Or maybe he has too much of whatever’s in Ilona.”  I shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

When I said he was similar to Ilona, something dark passed over Hazel’s face.  It didn’t disappear.

“Sorry,” I said quickly.

She glanced at me.  The darkness faded, but still lingered in the frown around her mouth and the dark violet of her eyes.  “Why?”

“I doubt anyone wants a kid that reminds them of Ilona.”

She lifted one shoulder in what was far more of a dainty shrug than I thought could be possible.  But I guess that’s why she was queen.  “Nature and nurture, I suppose.”

“Mira had some positive things to say about him, though.”

She arched a brow at me.  “Oh?”

“She said she’s had a few interactions with him.  He’s a dick, but it sounds like he’s well-equipped to be . . . maybe not a good ruler, but a competent one?  He could even be good if he got over his own ego.”  I shrugged.  “Doesn’t make me like him any more, but I guess, I have to admit that there’s something good about a ruler who wants to put his kingdom first.”  It wasn’t even like pulling teeth to admit that.  Seeing Mira’s impressions of him had shown that he was layered.  Like everyone else.  I was still pissed about the other day, though.  “Still an asshole, though.”

She chuckled.  “Noted.”

“So, they’re a triumvirate.  Your three children.”

“Yes,” she said.  She reached out with one hand to smooth her bare hand over the snow as we walked.  It was a strangely human gesture.

“How does that work?  Like, I guess, you, the king, and Aoife are kind of a triumvirate, right?”  She had said that earlier.  “I know she’s your war general, but it’s more than that?”  Especially after seeing how she interacted with Hazel.  More as an equal than a subordinate.

“Correct.  Aoife was the first child I sired that lasted for longer than a few decades.  She has been by my side ever since.  Even once she was Free.  We worked as equals for decades, if not centuries.  When I became queen, she didn’t want a title of royalty, but I refuse to do anything without her backing or input.”

“The king is okay with this?”

“Matadi knew we were a package set.  Aoife and I . . .”  She looked out towards the forest again.  “I have never been able to describe our relationship properly.”

“Soulmates.”

She glanced at me.  “That implies that there is a physical element to our relationship.”

“The hell it does.  I’ve always taken soulmates to literally mean that your souls, or whatever, are mated.  Doesn’t mean y’all have to be fucking.  You just have a bond that goes really deep.”  I shrugged.  “I have relationships like that.”

She made a thoughtful noise, pursing her lips.  “That does have a better ring to it.  Yes.  I would say we are soulmates.  In a different way than I am soulmates with Matadi.”  She smiled, nodding.  I could see a bit of peace settle across her face and shoulders.  Having a word to describe things could make a world of difference, sometimes.  Even for an old-as-fuck queen, apparently.

“Yeah.  So, the three of you are a triumvirate?  And you want that for your kids?”  I felt like this was the third time I was asking this, but there was something I was getting at.  I didn’t entirely know what it was, but I would follow it through.

“Correct.”

“So, are they ready to rule, then?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Like, if you were all gone, would they be able to do everything you do?”

“I allow my children to do some things.  But they are not well-equipped enough to do everything.  Coming into power in my kingdom was a learning process with a lot of missteps.  I’ve made sure that they don’t make similar mistakes.”

I looked out over the parapet as we walked.  “Aren’t they like . . . three hundred years old?”

“Yes.”  She said the word not quite as a question, but I could also tell that there was curiosity behind it.  She wanted to know why I had asked that.

“I mean, if they’re supposed to rule your kingdom one day, hasn’t it been long enough that they’ve learned most of what they can learn without experience?  What if you die suddenly?  Would they be ready to take over if you died tomorrow?  Isn’t succession supposed to be like a whole plan?”  I didn’t know a lot about monarchies outside of some movies I had seen, and the occasional book read about King Henry the Eighth or the Pharaohs.

“There are contingencies in place.  Aoife would be in charge until she deemed my children ready.”

I pursed my lips, chewing on that.  It wasn’t sitting right. “Have you ever asked them what they want?”

She glanced at me, a faint puzzled look wrinkling the area between her eyebrows and forming a pout around her mouth.  “What do you mean?”

“Well, you, or the king, or Aoife—you guys decide if they’re ready.  You come from royalty originally, right?  So, you knew how succession worked, I’m assuming.  So that’s the model you built.  A monarchy through the bloodline, like other monarchies.”

She watched me thoughtfully, waiting for me to continue.

“King Tut was like twelve when he became king.  There’s no fucking way he was ready for that.  But it was preordained, chosen by the sun god, blah blah blah.  But he was a kid.  He can’t have been ready for the burden of a whole kingdom.  I’m sure there are people alive we can ask about him”—since Empress Theodora was a whole ass, real vampire—“who would know for sure.  But I have to believe he was just a kid.  No way he was ready.  It was chosen for him.

“Did you ever ask your kids if they wanted this?”

“Of course I did,” she said.  “I asked them when they were young, and I first started training them.”

I stared at her.  “Did you ask them again?”

“Yes.  I asked them for their first few decades of life.  They were always very interested in it.”

“When’s the last time you asked?”

She didn’t have an answer ready for that question.

“It just seems like you all make a lot of decisions for your kids without their say-so or input.  That just doesn’t sound right.  When did you stop asking your kids what they wanted?”

And that was it, wasn’t it?

Mauve and Leah had asked me every step of the way what I wanted.  Starting from when I was a kid.  We would do things together and they, along with my mom, always took my and Mickey and Bell’s thoughts into account.  We wouldn’t go to that place for dinner because most of their stuff has cheese on it, and Bell hates the taste of cheese so much that even a little bit of cross contamination could ruin it.  We wouldn’t go to that playground because it didn’t have swings, and I love swings.  We wouldn’t eat at that diner because they didn’t have waffles, and Mickey’s favorite thing is waffles.

We didn’t talk for a long time after they moved to Washington.  But when they finally reached out to me to ask about adoption, they wanted my input.  They had checked during every step of the way if it was what I wanted.  Even as we were signing the adoption papers, they were asking me what I wanted, like they always had.

When I moved in, they continued to check in with me.  They converted Mauve’s study into my room.  I had supreme decision power in how my room was designed and because they could afford it, no expense was spared.  They never tried to keep me from talking to my Phoenix family.  They even let me go visit them a couple times (they accompanied me, probably to make sure I didn’t stay in Phoenix, but I never argued).

I always had a choice.  They always treated me like an adult and made sure I was part of the family.  I had flourished in that environment.  I was given enough structure to make me feel secure while also being master of most things in my life.  I didn’t want to go to a party?  Mauve “grounded me” and we stayed home watching movies.  I wanted to take a painting class at the rec center?  Leah took it with me.  I didn’t know what college I wanted to go to?  I was given the option to stay home and figure it out before trying out college or potentially nixing it all together.  They encouraged me to do the dual enrollment with a local college to get credits towards an Associate’s.

I was consulted on everything and given a choice.

Until I wasn’t.

I wasn’t given a choice to be with my brothers.  I was lied to and left out, intentionally.  And while the reasons made sense, and were probably even good reasons, I lost everything.  Just like when I got thrown into foster.  Relegated to the same role at eighteen that I had when I was nine—a sad girl who lost her family through no fault of her own.

And I think I could have come to terms with that, if it was true.  I had reunited with Mira and the rest and even made up with Mira before Mickey and Bell revealed they were still alive.  If they hadn’t been alive—if they really had died in those woods—I think I would have been okay.  I lost my mom to circumstances no one could control.  I had eventually gotten through it.  If I had lost my brothers to circumstances no one could control, I could have been okay.  I was a vampire, sure, but I was beginning to be normal again, surrounded by my family.

But, in the end, they had been alive.  They found me, and they were alive, and I had my whole family again.

Except, them being alive meant that I lost my family in circumstances that were controlled.  Not them being werewolves, obviously.  But Mauve and Leah, and Mickey and Bell themselves, maintained this lie that they were gone and never to be found.  Probably dead in the woods.

I had no say in any of that.  And the sequence of events that resulted were because of that lack of control.  I was a vampire because of it.  I had almost died in October after being tortured by two sadistic vampires.  Mikko had been tortured by Ilona.  Genie and Frankie’s parents were dead.  All because I had become a vampire.  All because I had been lied to.

All of my control had been taken from me.

“I think,” Hazel said, breaking me out of my reverie, “that maybe I lost the thread at some point.”

I glanced down at her. 

“As any parent does, I want what’s best for my children,” she said.  “I always thought I would do what’s best for them.  I always thought I wouldn’t do what my parents did—there is a lot I could tell you that would explain Ilona, but I don’t want to.”

That was fair.

“Looking back, though, maybe I have done them disservices.  I’ve made choices for them because I thought I knew better.  I thought I was protecting them, or I thought I had more information than they did.”  She bit her lip pensively.  “Cailean going out to become a bounty hunter was a big fight.  She didn’t speak to me for weeks.  I finally relented to get her to talk to me.  And it turned out that it was a good idea for her to go out and experience the world.”

I didn’t realize Cailean was a bounty hunter.  Though I didn’t know much about her anyway, so that wasn’t a shocker.

“And I know she’s close to renouncing the throne.  She wants nothing to do with it anymore.  Maybe she never really did from the beginning.  But I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You made choices because you thought you were protecting them?” I asked.

“Of course.  Choices not to let them consort with the ‘bae because I thought they were potentially dangerous.  Choices not to let them accompany me to certain sensitive negotiations or diplomatic missions in case they misstepped.”

“Because you didn’t trust them?”

Her brow furrowed, and she stopped, looking up at me.  “Didn’t trust them?”

I stopped walking with her.  “You didn’t trust them to make the right choices?”

She stopped with me, looking up at the sky, as if searching it for an answer.  “Hm,” she murmured.  “Didn’t trust them?  No . . .” 

She was quiet for another moment before her attention finally snapped back to me.  “I see why you would think that,” she said.  “It does sound like I didn’t trust them to make choices for themselves.  Like I didn’t trust them to be smart, or I didn’t think they could do it.  But really . . . I made those choices because I was afraid of the unknown.  It was already a situation that made me uncomfortable.  Not for me, but uncomfortable for the idea of my kids being involved.  And there’s so much I have no control over that could go wrong.  What if there’s an assassination attempt?  What if I didn’t think of a contingency where they could get hurt?  What if I was out of my depth and didn’t know it?  What if I made a mistake that could get them hurt or killed?  What if?  What if?  What if?

“So, yes, I guess, maybe I didn’t full trust them.  But more than that, I didn’t trust the situation.  Didn’t trust the unknown.  And the thought of the unknown, of throwing my kids into something I couldn’t predict, terrified me.  Because they’re my children.  I love them and I want them to be safe, taken care of, and happy.”  She inhaled and exhaled deeply.  “I guess I’ve made some poor decisions on their behalf because of that fear.  But, I also think, I did the best I could with what I had.  All I can do is try harder next time.  And maybe let the fear talk a little less.” 

Fear.  I had never even thought of that.

Mauve and Leah had told me they were afraid.  Afraid of what might happen to me.  And I had taken that to mean that they didn’t trust me or their kids.  They were afraid that we couldn’t keep it together enough not to get someone (probably me) killed.

They were in an entirely new situation where they didn’t know anything.  They didn’t know about werewolves or shifters and everything was new.  They had known I knew about magics and all of that, but they had been so out of their depth . . .

They hadn’t known what would happen to me without Mickey and Bell.  They could never have predicted the chain of events that led to me being here.  Becoming a vampire, becoming Ilona’s child, surviving an assassination attempt, watching my family survive Ilona’s wrath—of course they couldn’t have seen that chain of events.  Who could? 

I had known that, even while I was angry at them for making the decisions that led me to all of this.  Even when I was blaming them for all of that.

I hadn’t ever thought about the results of the alternative.  What if they had told me?  What if I had known that Mickey and Bell were alive.  What if I had been allowed a decision on how to handle that?

They hadn’t known what would happen to me without Mickey and Bell.  Just like they hadn’t known what would happen to me with Mickey and Bell.  We would never know what would have happened if we had gone down the path where I knew they were alive. 

They made a choice for me.  Because they were afraid and didn’t know the results of either option—me knowing or not knowing.  They chose not to tell me, because at least that meant that they knew that Mickey and Bell wouldn’t kill me.  They knew for sure that if Mickey and Bell were isolated from me, if I thought they were gone, I wouldn’t die by their hand.  Their decision wouldn’t directly lead to my death.

They had just done the best they could with what they had.  And the best they had wasn’t a whole fucking lot.

Jesus Christ.

“I’m an asshole,” I said.

Hazel blinked in surprise.  “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head.  “You helped me realize something.  I really have to go.”

“By all means,” she said.

I needed to get my phone.