We're going to keep her.
The certainty settles into my chest like a stone—heavy, permanent, absolutely immovable.
We're going to keep her.
Not because of strategy.
Not because of the alliance.
Not because of any of the careful justifications we've been using to explain why this makes sense.
We're going to keep her because she'sours.
Because she fits into the broken spaces between us like she was designed for it.
Because none of us—not Sage, not Blaze, not Kai, and certainly not me—can imagine going back to a world where she doesn't exist in our orbit.
But to keep her...
We have to survive.
She has to survive.
This thing between us has to survive long enough to become something real.
Which means dealing with the threat.
Which means ending the man who's been sending assassins to our door, who's been trying to eliminate his own son, who represents everything that stands between us and the future we're starting to want.
I look down at the bodies scattered across the lawn.
Four more dead.
Four more failed attempts.
But they'll keep coming.
They'll keep coming until there's nothing left to protect, until the threat is dealt with permanently, until Kai's father understands that he's not facing a pack of obedient soldiers anymore.
He's facing a pack that has something to lose.
Someoneto lose.
And that makes us more dangerous than he could possibly imagine.
I turn toward the house.
Toward the warmth of light bleeding through windows.
Toward the scent of cotton candy and violence and the girl who just rewrote everything I thought I knew about myself.
Tomorrow, I'll talk to Kai.
Tomorrow, we'll finalize the plan.
Tomorrow, we'll set in motion the events that will either save us all or destroy us trying.
But tonight...
