Lotus Oden
She glared at me, her nostrils compressing into pinpoints. The defiance was becoming for her, but it was also goddamn stupid. "I'd like to see you try to make me stay."
"You leave here, and you risk yourself and all of us. That's something I can't allow to happen."
She was right. "I think we're all in danger whether or not I go," she'd said. I knew it. But the alternative was to release her out of here and head straight into a trap laid by some unseen foe, an enemy that very likely laid it for me and my crew. I had to protect my team—my family—no matter if it meant that I was the asshole who kept her captive.
My anger had been a blockage, a way of not having to think about how she appeared, how her eyes contained both flames and fear. My bellowed commands had been a way of t
