“You do not know what you’re saying,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose for you it is.”
He left.
The truck started outside a moment later. The sound faded down the road, leaving the house too quiet again.
Maisie looked at her coffee. “It’s cold.”
I crossed to her and crouched beside the chair. It was deliberate. I wanted her above me for once.
I wanted her to know I wasn’t asking her to be smaller. I took her injured hand and turned it palm up.
“Two weeks,” I said.
Her fingers curled slightly against mine. “Can you?”
It was a fair question. The bond in my chest hated the idea already. It wanted her close, wanted my scent on her and hers on me. It wanted every person who came near this farm to know exactly what she was to me.
But I’d spent most of my life learning not to do what I wanted.
“Yes,” I said. “I can.”
She searched my face.
“I can follow the rules,” I added. “You’ve seen me do it.”
That almost made her smile.
I pressed my mouth to her palm, careful of the cuts. “But understand me. This is the last time you make yourself small in this house. We do this to win, not because they own you.”
Her eyes shone, but she didn’t cry.
“I’m not good at being small anymore,” she said.
I stood and held out my hand. After a moment, she took it and let me draw her up from the chair. She came against me willingly, her cheek pressed to my chest. I held her for longer than we could afford.
Then I let go first.
That cost me something. I did it anyway.
“Go wash,” I said. “I’ll change the bedding. We’ll make the guest room look like yours.”
Her expression shifted. Not fear now. Determination. She nodded.
I watched her leave the kitchen, my shirt hanging from her shoulders, her bare feet silent on the floor. In two weeks, a stranger from Earth would stand in my house and decide whether she belonged here.
He would be wrong if he thought that the decision was his.
I’d buried the Bastion because I wanted peace. Now I had trees. I’d built a home, I’d learned how to be gentle because I wanted to be more than the thing they’d made.
But I hadn’t forgotten how to win.
And for Maisie, I would remember everything.
9
MAISIE
