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Who wanted Athos? All of them?
Or just one of them?
Eslem’s dark brown eyes gazed at her, her presence suddenly more imposing than her five brothers.
“See you soon,” she whispered to Athos.
Then she met Athos’s parents’ eyes before twisting on her heel and walking out of the room.
No one breathed in the thirty seconds before we heard the door slam and bolt shut far at the end of the hallway and Crane returned to verify we were now alone.
Michael spun around, ordering Crane. “I want her at Delcour, all the entrances locked, and get David and Lev back in town immediately.”
“No!” Athos cried.
“The safest place for her is with us,” Rika argued.
“I agree with Michael,” Damon chimed in. “Get her out of town. Now.”
“You think they’re going to care if it’s Devil’s Night or not?” Banks pushed back her chair and walked around the table. “We can make her safe tonight, but there’s no stopping them coming back tomorrow or the next day.”
“I’m not going into hiding,” Athos told her father, a tendril of hair hanging in her face. “I’m not some prize to protect. I’m probably a distraction, so they can keep you occupied worrying about me instead of protecting something they really want here.”
“They wanted her at the island tonight,” Kai pointed out. “It’s her they want, and they’re going to tear apart this town coming after it. If we don’t go to Deadlow Island, they’ll bring the war to Thunder Bay.”
“I’m not going to that island,” Rika said.
“If they want us there, they’ll find a way to draw us there,” Alex told her.
“She needs to be under lock and key,” Aydin told Michael. “One of those little shits knocks her up, you’ll never escape that family.”
“Yo, fuck nut!” Damon barked, telling Aydin to shut up.
Aydin lifted his middle finger, rubbing his temple with it.
Athos rolled her eyes at her uncles, standing firm and glaring at her father. “I’m staying,” she said. “What do I learn by hiding? It’s your responsibility to teach me to survive without you someday.”
Michael stared at her, everyone around us falling silent as we watched Rika and her husband be the first ones to confront the day that we all feared, yet knew was coming.
Athos couldn’t be sheltered anymore. She was a beautiful young woman, and an heir to a powerful family that she would help lead one day after we were gone.
She was right. She had to learn.
The lump in Michael’s throat moved up and then down, and then…he reached down, underneath the table, and took out a box, hesitating for a moment before handing it to his Athos.
She opened it and peeled back the tissue paper, taking out a half-mask, red, just like her father’s.
Except it wasn’t a plastic paintball helmet. It was a lighter, form-fitting leather skull that covered the top half of her face, leaving her mouth free.
Her chin trembled, her eyes shooting up to Michael.
“The Red Death?” she whispered.
She loved Edgar Allan Poe.
He smiled down at her, all of us reaching under the table and pulling our masks out from our individual compartments.
The girls slipped on their jackets, Banks with a belt of knives around the thigh of her black jeans, Winter with her sheer red blindfold, Emmy with her gloves with the hooks, and Rika with a katana strapped to her back.
