Our helicopter approaches the northern-most airport, creepily darkened. Defunct or destroyed planes sit on the tarmac, and I realize the Order must’ve taken the airports first to trap them inside. One plane sits alone on the black asphalt, a modest, private aircraft unperturbed by the newly fallen streams of rain. It glistens against the blue lights of the airstrip, which also illuminate a stout figure next to a suitcase. I gasp and unbuckle my seat belt, anxiously awaiting Taylor’s landing. The blades cease their chopping, and I throw off my headset and take off toward him.
“Luciana.” He opens his arms and I toss myself into him, dissolving into tears, clutching his raincoat in my fists. His smell—cologne and cigar smoke—makes more tears fall from my eyes. “Don’t cry,principessa. I’m so happy you’re alive.”
I pull back to examine his face. He looks like he’s aged several years in the past few months. Red veins crawl from his black eyes, purple bags sitting heavy below them. “I’m sorry, Papa.”
“No, I should be sorry. I should have seen this coming and prevented it.” He swallows thickly and rubs the scraggly beard he’s grown in my absence. “They almost have the city. They took Boston weeks ago, Providence after. It wasn’t long before the major states defected, but I held my city. Our city.”
The Order, everyone, see a tyrant, ruthless and calculating, and they’re right. My father is a lot of horrible things, but he is also my father. For that reason, I cannot quite abhor him the way I should. I see a human, complex and flawed and selfish. Isee my daddy, who taught me how to ride a bike and throw a baseball. I see a single father burdened by grief, trying his best to fill a gap, only to find it is a never-ending chasm. I see the man whose hands were so full of his own despair he couldn’t carry mine. I despised him for that weakness, but now I understand it. “I know.”
Taylor approaches from behind, giving us a modest amount of space. Papa looks over my shoulder, posture going rigid. You can take the man out of power, but you’d be hard-pressed to take the power out of the man. “So, you’re the one who kidnapped my daughter.”
“Yes, sir,” Taylor says, hands behind her back.
He takes a step away from me, unkempt mustache flicking. “You’re tiny.”
Taylor makes a face. “You’re large?”
“What’s your name?” As if he’s got any right to that information. The entitlement still oozes from him.
“Eos.”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s not a real name.”
“Papa, this is Taylor.” The qualifiers I want to use for her fail me. How can I explain to my father what this woman means to me without revealing my betrayal?
Taylor heaves a sigh. “Leader Piccolo, you understand the terms of the agreement, yes?”
“Yes. I am a man of my word.”
“What was the agreement?” I ask.
“I surrender the region, and my life, in exchange for your safety. The suitcase is yours. Well, whatever I could grab before I left. The lady in charge, Theo?—”
“Theia,” I correct.
“—She said you would be safe.”
My blood turns to ice. I’m frozen, other than the slip of my jaw. “No, no, you can’t do this,” I plead to Taylor, who pressesher lips to a thin line. “He’s given up everything, let him live. Let him go.”
“You knew what this was. The agreement guarantees your safety, not his.”
“No, this is bullshit.” I scramble back to Papa and plant myself in front of him. “I will not let you do this.”
Taylor lifts an eyebrow. “Let me? Say goodbye to your father, Miss Piccolo. You will not get another chance.”
Papa’s big black eyes are glossy with tears, but he roughly wipes them away. “You take care of yourself, Luciana. You’re a fighter like your mother. I know you’ll be okay.”
“But I…” I gesture vaguely toward Taylor and the Order she represents. I betrayed you. I believed in this. I think I still do.
“It’s okay, Lucy. It’s okay.” He coughs once to try and dissolve the lump in his throat. “I’m proud of you. I’m proud to leave you in this world, because I know you’ll do things right.”
I take him in another fierce hug, pressing him to me. “Daddy.”
He chuckles into my hair. “It’s been a long time since you called me that.”
“I know. I should have been better.”
“We both could’ve been better, but then we wouldn’t have been us,” he says. “Don’t forget how much I love you. Stay safe. Stay out of trouble.”
