Page 99 of Wicked Nightmare

I caught it.

We were in deep shit now. But watching Rose twirl in a patch of sunlight, her raspy laugh bouncing off the rusted rides and coming back to us in echoes, there was no walking away from her. Not now. Probably not ever. And that was terrifying because the last time I'd gotten attached to someone who wasn't Cam, she'd disappeared from St. Agnes and gotten tortured to death.

Don't think about Lydia. Not right now.

A grin split my cheeks. "Look at you! You're a natural spinner," I called out, clapping my hands like some proud soccer mom. It felt weird, being the cheerleader. The enthusiastic one. The one who clapped and hollered and acted like she had a minivan and a juice box in her purse. But it also felt right. We all needed someone making noise for us once in a while. I was lucky enough to have my other half. She'd had no one.

"You enjoying the show, big guy?" I elbowed Cam, earning a grunt.

"It's... not terrible," he admitted.

"High praise from the king of understatement."

Rose stumbled over to us, cheeks flushed, out of breath. "Did you see? I was spinning so fast!" She grabbed my hands, pulling me towards the rusty Merry-Go-Round. "Come on, Lakey! Spin with me!"

As I let her drag me along, laughing, I caught Cam's eye over my shoulder. Something in his face had shifted over the past week. Not softened, exactly. Cam didn't soften. But the hard edges had rearranged themselves to make room for something new, something he didn't have a name for yet and wasn't about to go looking for one. He was becoming more tender, dare I say, almost sentimental, but in the best of ways.

We were changing. Both of us.

We spun until we were dizzy, Rose's giggles mixing with my own breathless laughter. The Merry-Go-Round groaned and creaked under us, the metal warm from the sun, the peeling paint rough under my palms. For a few minutes, I could almost pretend. Just a normal little family on a day out. Going home to a clean house and a fridge full of groceries and maybe a movie on the couch later. No bodies in the trunk. No blood under our nails. No daughter out there somewhere that I couldn't find.

Almost.

Rose spun off the Merry-Go-Round and staggered across the cracked pavement, laughing so hard she had to hold her stomach. She found a rusted swing set and dropped into one of the seats, the chains squealing in protest. Started swinging. Just swinging, pumping her legs, her hair flying behind her, and she looked so young. Not twenty. Not someone who'd survived what she'd survived. Just a girl on a swing in the sun.

I sat on the ground nearby and watched her. Picked at the weeds growing through the concrete. Let myself sit in whatever this feeling was without trying to name it or shove it down.

Cam lowered himself next to me. Close enough that our shoulders touched. He didn't say anything for a while. Just watched Rose swing higher, the chains popping and groaning, the whole frame shuddering.

"She's gonna break that thing," he said.

"Let her."

He was quiet again. Then: "You good?"

I leaned my head against his shoulder. "Yeah. I'm good."

It was the truth and it wasn't. I was good right here, right now, in this exact moment. But the other stuff was still there, underneath. Lillianna. The fact that my daughter existed somewhere and I couldn't get to her. The guilt of sitting here playing house while she might be in one of those labs, strapped down, cut open, and I was watching a grown woman swing on a rusty playground. What kind of mother was I? The kind who didn't even know she was a mother until a few weeks ago, sure, but still. The knowledge was here now. It was mine. And it was eating me alive in the quiet moments when I wasn't performing for Rose or fucking Cam or pretending everything was under control.

But I pushed it down. Took a breath. Locked it in the box with everything else. I'd deal with it later. I'd made a promise and I'd keep it. But right now, someone else needed me, and she was right here, swinging, and I could actually help her. Lillianna was a plan. Rose was a person in front of me.

But as the sun started to dip, reality came crashing back. Cam's body went rigid next to me, every muscle locking at once. He was on his feet before I even processed the change.

"We need to go." His voice was tight. Controlled. The voice he used when he didn't want to scare anyone, but something was very wrong.

I stood up. That prickle on the back of my neck was there, the one that had kept us alive more times than I could count. We were being watched. I couldn't see it, couldn't point to a tree or a shadow or a car, but I knew it the same way I knew how to breathe.

"Aw, five more minutes?" Rose pleaded from the swing.

I was already walking towards her. "Sorry. Time to jet." I kept my voice light, easy, nothing to see here. "But hey, we'll come back soon, yeah?"

Rose's face fell, but she didn't argue. She was getting better at reading us, which was both good and fucking terrible. Good because she'd learn to survive. Terrible because it meant she was already picking up on the fact that our lives were built on threat assessment and exit strategies and the constant low-frequency hum of danger that most people never had to hear.

We piled into the car. Cam's knuckles went white on the steering wheel before we even pulled out of the lot. He took a different route home. I noticed. He noticed I noticed. Neither of us said anything.

The drive home was tense, Cam checking the rearview every few seconds, taking turns that didn't make sense unless you understood he was running a pattern to see if anyone was following us. Rose sat in the back, quiet now, picking at a thread on her sleeve. She knew something was off but she didn't ask. I hated that she knew not to ask. I hated that someone had taught her that.

But as soon as we stumbled through the front door and Cam threw the deadbolt and the chain, some of the tightness loosened. Our shitty little apartment was a dump, but it was ours. Safe enough. I flopped onto the ratty couch, pulling Rose down with me.