Ignoring her, I dial quickly. “Hello? Yes. I need to report a case of stalking.” I smirk at my parents before I tell the operator, “Yes. The address is four…You know what? It seems they’re leaving now. Thank you.”

I hang up the phone. My parents haven’t moved, and neither have the agents who stand curiously and concerned in the doorway. “Go. Or I’ll call them back. And then I’ll call every news station, every blogger and journalist and give a sit-down interview, and your bid to stay in the White House will end by the evening news.”

It’s a generational standoff, but I am Honey’s granddaughter. I’m not a flower.

I’m a bomb.

And for the first time in my entire life, I think my mother recognizes that. Because she walks out the door without any other demands from me.

And as I crumble to the floor, I physically feel like a bomb. Because I’m about to explode, and I’m afraid Fitz will be in my sphere of destruction.

But then I remember, he told me his greatest wish is that he stood up for what was right.

So I can only hope he’ll understand I need to do the same, even if he’s in the path of the bomb’s destruction.

* * *

I’ve never felt the need to check the lock on the door more than I have in the last hour. And worse? It’s still light out.

In my bedroom, I stick my secondary lock against the opening and shut the door against it. Then I climb into bed and yank the covers over me, hiding my head in the mound of pillows, searching for Fitz’s lingering scent.

I wonder if this will be all I have. I wonder if when it comes down to Foller and me, I won’t matter as much. Because how can I compete with someone he stands by so firmly? My racing thoughts of worst-case scenarios are so exhausting that they themselves are a distraction from the need to get out of bed and check the front door again. My mind takes me to another door, one you had to be buzzed into, one with letters on it.

INFIRMARY.

I trace the letters as I wait to be let in, but it’s only so no one notices that I’m trying to look through the glass into the normally curtained-off area where I left Sarah.

It takes longer than normal, but I wait. All I can do here is wait for each day to pass until we get to the end. Until I get out. Finally, the lock whirs, and I pull the door open, holding up my hand with the papercut.

She looks at me like I’m crazy. And maybe I am. “What do you need for that?”

“A Band-Aid, I guess.”