Cam: [long pause] My heart, it just...stopped. Like, no pulse, no blood pumping at all. My muscles locked up, and it’s a miracle I didn’t hit a tree because I couldn’t tear my eyes off the phone. I didn’t look at the road. All I could see was my baby on that little screen, holding a gun, waving it around. And I was completely helpless to stop her.

Juanita: Because you were still miles away. Stuck in traffic.

Cam: [wipes eyes] Nothing could have prepared me for that kind of terror. Nothing.

Juanita: So what did you do?

Cam: I drove like hell. I prayed to a God I’ve spent most of my life either ignoring or mocking, a God I have zero business asking any favors. I swore that if He or She would just spare my family, just... [shakes head]

Juanita: Do you need to take a break?

Cam: No. I’m all right.

Juanita: Take all the time you need.

Cam: I swore if God would spare them, keep them alive and in one piece, then I would never ask for anything ever again. And all those things I used to care about, the restaurants and the real estate and the houses and cars, I’d give it all up. Because here’s what happens when your family’s lives are at stake. There’s this...white-light moment of clarity, a lightning-bolt realization that you’re an idiot and all that shit you’ve spent so much time and effort accumulating is worthless. The banks can have everything. I don’t want any of those things anymore. Without Jade and the Bees, it’s worthless. I’m worthless.

Juanita: August 6 was your wake-up call?

Cam: [nods] I’m just sorry it happened too late.

J A D E

6:57 p.m.

I’m so busy watching Sebastian that I don’t notice it at first.

The way Beatrix’s arm reached across the armrest and into my chair just now, like her wrist wasn’t connected to the leather. The object she pressed in my hand.

Long. Hard. Warm from body heat.

Automatically, I close my fingers around it, concealing the thing in a fist.

But I don’t look. And I don’t consider how it could be possible. Not yet.

I’m too distracted by Sebastian’s shouting into the wall speaker, a long tirade about how Cam better get here and get here in a hurry. How he shouldn’t listen to me.

Three minutes until seven, the blink of an eye and an endless eternity at the same time. Sebastian is furious, this situation so volatile. Anything can happen in three minutes.

And then realization hits.

The warm, hard, sticky thing in my palm.

I unfurl my fingers just enough to peek inside.