“Hold on. Just tell me what they told you.”
Her voice rises. “They threatened my dad and my siblings. And Nat, Declan. They threatened Nat. I can’t risk their safety. And I won’t go through something like that again.”
She stops to take a breath. “So I’m going to take you up on that promise you made that you’d let me leave if I asked you to.”
The floor drops out from under me. My entire body goes cold. When I speak, my voice is rough with pain. “Just like that?”
“It’s like that Sun Tzu quote you told me when you found me watching TV after you were gone for three days. ‘The wise warrior avoids the battle.’ I’m gonna sit this whole battle out.”
She turns her head and looks me square in the eye. Looks at me with piercing intensity.
My heart skips a beat. The cold in my body thaws, then t
