Page 11 of Ignition Rites

That isn’t what I expected, and it must show, because she looks away before I can ask.

“What do you mean, got out?”

She starts picking at the loose thread again, unraveling it inch by inch. “My mom grew up in…” She looks out toward the roses. “A group. A — I don’t even know what to call it. She doesn’t talk about it. I only know because I found pictures once, in a shoebox, and she cried when she saw me holding them. Actually cried. She told me just enough that I stopped asking.”

I don’t say anything, because she’s finally talking and I’m afraid of doing something that makes her stop.

“She met my dad there. They ran before I was born.” The thread comes loose in her hand. “My dad died when I was little. She’s spent my whole life making sure nothing like that ever touched me again. So when you tell me she basically married into a cult — ”

“I’m not saying she knew.”

“Then what are you saying?”

I look at her and realize every honest answer makes the house around us darker.

“I’m saying I don’t think anyone here has as much choice as they pretend to.”

Lo looks away, jaw working while she stares toward the hedges. “I don’t want to believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“That’s for you to decide.”

She’s quiet for a long time, and when she speaks again her voice is smaller. “Why are you telling me this? Like, what’s the point?”

Dominic’s warning comes back to me exactly as he gave it. Being right, in this house, has terrible consequences, and I’d rather you learn that the easy way than finding out for yourself. I think about Ash telling me to keep my hands off until she understood what this place was and had a real choice.

“Because you deserve the chance to choose,” I say. “And because I’d rather be standing next to you when everything goes to shit than watching you walk into it blind.”

She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t move away either. The sun drops another degree, and eventually her shoulder settles against mine, and I stay exactly where I am.

I find Ash in the shop that night, bay two, half his body swallowed by the Camaro’s open hood while he chases an electrical problem that’s been pissing him off for over a week.

“I told her,” I say.

His head comes up. “Told who what?”

“Lo. About the circuit, the Reaping, enough for her to understand what this family actually is.”

Ash straightens out of the engine bay and wipes his hands on the rag hanging from his back pocket, spreading the grease more than removing it. “You had one rule.”

“You gave me a condition.” I cross my arms. “Hands off until she knew what this place was and could make a real choice. Now she knows.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Then you should’ve said what you meant.”

He tosses the rag onto the bench. “How much did you tell her?”

“Enough.”

“Rafe.”

“The Reaping. The rankings. The masks.”

“Jesus Christ. You don’t know what Alistair does when somebody starts asking the wrong questions.”