Something moved at the edge of Riot’s vision, coming from the Jeep on legs that had no business being operational. Cass’s hand closed on Prepper’s wrist, and Prepper went still with the pure bewilderment of a Rottweiler being accosted by a hamster.
“Please stop. Please don’t hit him.” Cass looked at the ground as he said it, chewing on his lower lip.
Christ.
Riot lay on the ground with blood on his lip and dirt on his back and looked up at this ridiculous, impossible, brave, stupid person and thought:I killed a man for you less than twenty-four hours ago and I would do it again right now, but you just stopped a three-hundred-pound Berserker with the word “please”, and I have absolutely no idea which one of us is more dangerous.
“Princess,” Riot’s voice came out wrong, too soft in the presence of the others. He tried again. “It’s okay. This is how he says hello.”
“Byhittingyou?”
“It’s a whole thing. Cass, really, sit down before you fall down,” Riot urged.
Cass didn’t sit down. He kept his hand on Prepper’s arm and finally looked at the man with the absolute, earnest, unblinking certainty of a person who would stand there until the sun burned out if that’s what it took. “Please don’t hit him again, Mr. Prepper.”
Prepper looked at Cass. Looked at Riot. Looked at Cass again.
“Hm,” Stave grunted. Which was Stave forimpressive.
“Okay,” Prepper said gently, the rough edges filed down. “No more hitting.”
Honey pulled Cass back as Stave hauled Riot to his feet. For a moment, they all stood there recalibrating, because Riot had come home different, and the difference involved a barefoot, glassy-eyed Omega.
A gunshot split the evening and Cass tried to duck, but Riot pulled him against his chest and rolled his eyes. Honey yelped and held her hands up, turning towards the direction it came from.
“SAGE.” Granny Lu came up faster than her chair should have allowed (which meant Lilac had been tinkering with it again) wearing an expression that said she’d been rehearsing this dressing-down for hours and was about to deliver the director’s cut.
Cass pulled away from Riot, fiddling with one of his braids as he stepped forward and said, in a voice that had no business being that steady: “I’m not Elysian anymore. I’m done. I brought my best friend like I said I would, and we all came back, and nobody needs to be in trouble because it was my idea.”
Riot just stared. This was the same person who wanted to cuddle with a Berserker, apologized for bumping into furniture and flinched at swear words.Now he was standing in front of a woman with a rifle, protecting the people behind him from a threat that wasn’t even a threat.
“—I know I needed help, because I’m not strong and brave like your grandkids—”
Riot blinked.
Oh no, I never told him.
Cass thought Granny Lu was Riot’s actual biological grandmother. Which meant he thought Sage was Riot’s—
“Boy,“ Granny Lu said, and the word shut everything else down.
Her eyes moved. Past Cass. Past Riot. To Sage.
“Come here.”
Every part of Sage that Riot had ever seen —the steadiness, the confidence, the flat gaze—drained out of her like someone had pulled a plug. What walked toward the wheelchair was smaller. Younger. A person who’d been bold enough to defy a direct order, but was discovering that bravery and consequences were two different currencies.
Sage stopped in front of the wheelchair. “Ma’am.”
Granny Lu reached up and touched the bare scalp where green hair used to be. Her thumb moved across the smooth skin like she was reading something written there only she could parse.
“You didn’t leave bald,” Granny Lu said.
“No, ma’am.”
“What happened to your hair?”
“They wanted to dye it. I wasn’t giving them my hair.”
