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“It’s not your fault,” I repeat. “That seven-year-old boy who was just trying to love on his mother and sister is not at fault, Dar. Don’t tell me he is. No more’n this little girl right here was at fault for bein’ born a girl, which is what Da hates me for the most. They’re the adults who should have taught us how to love instead of hate.”
Darwin squeezes me. “You taught me how to love. Watching you and Gabe, and you and Charlie. Wanting what the three of you had so badly and knowing it should be mine. All those lessons from my father were for nothing. I threw everything he taught me at you and you shut me down at every turn. I finally realized the only way I was going to get what I wanted was by acting like you. By loving the way you do.”
I shift so I can prop my chin on his shoulder.
“So, what you’re really saying is that I’m your hero.”
Darwin’s grin ripples up from his mouth to his eyes. “Yes, my heroic teddy bear.”
“Will I still be your hero if I kill my Da?”
His eyes tarnish and his hand slips around to stroke my cheek with his knuckles.
“I don’t want you to,” he says finally. “If it comes to that, let us do it. Charlie volunteers to do it on an hourly basis. I’d do it without thinking twice. I think even Gabe would after what we saw when we rescued you from your father’s house. It doesn’t have to be you.”
“I still don’t understand this Time-shite, but I’m pretty sure this is a confluence. It’ll come down to me an’ him and I’ll have to make a choice.”
“Then choose something else. Choose us and let us defend you. Choose to run away. Choose anything but the thing that will haunt you for the rest of your life, that will lead to that future where you’re dead in ten years.” His voice catches. “Because I can’t face that future, Teddy.”
“Me neither, mate.” I put my head back down on his shoulder and snuggle in. “Last thing I want to do is leave you lads nowwat that we’re together. I just don’t know what else to do. Feels like Fate’s pushin’ me down one Path.”
“There’s always another way. You taught me that. I couldn’t see any Path other than the one father had me on. Following his footsteps. You’ve given me hope of something else. Something the four of us shape together that has nothing to do with him. Nothing to do withthem. Let us give you the same hope. We’ll create a new future together that doesn’t involve either of our fathers.”
“You think that’s a possibility?”
Because that spell popping up today felt pretty strongly like the hand of Fate giving me a big old push.
“You’ve given me leverage so I can pry myself free from my father’s plans for me. What can I do for you, Teddy? How can I help you find the same kind of leverage on your father?”
“I dunnow, mate. He’s dead good at covering himself. All the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen a weak spot.”
Darwin’s quiet for a long moment.
“Do you want me to kill him for you?”
“No. I don’t think any of us should kill him, but if one of us has to, it should be me. I just ... The Mr. Black told me murder was the one thing I couldn’t be forgiven. D’you feel that way, too? Would you forgive me if I killed to protect us?”
“It’s not a question of whether I’d forgive you, Teddy. It’s a question of whether you’d forgive yourself.”
I rub my cheek against his shoulder while I think it through. How would I feel if Da was gone from the world?
Safer.
Darwin’s hand glides up and down my back. “You’re thinking loudly again. And these don’t feel like happy thoughts.”
“Can you really feel me thinking?”
He makes a soft rumble in his chest. “Kind of. Not the way Gabe can. Not like a vibration. I get flickers. Impressions. Edges of images. I haven’t met your father, so I know when I get a glimpse of a man’s face who looks like you, that’s from you. Or Charlie.”
“You get thoughts from Charlie?”
“I think so. Either that or I’m having a lot of dreams about lacrosse.”
I giggle. “You’d look dead good in some of those shorts they wear, mate, you decide to take up the stick.”
He lifts his leg, bare because the healers left him in his kecks after they examined every inch of him, and rubs it between mine.
“You think I have nice legs?”
