It clicks into locked position with horrifying authority.

My father, behind me, still says nothing.

“Are you ready for this?” Cora asks. Her voice is gentle, as if she’s a young mother placing her child on the merry-go-round for the first time.

I don’t answer her. Instead, I keep my gaze on Cora but address my father.

“Everything was always about family.” I put more weight on my back leg and raise the poker higher. “We could have made things right twenty years ago, but we had to have secrets because that’s how families take care of themselves, right? We could’ve brought peace to Caleb’s family.” My voice grows louder. Beads of sweat run from my forehead and down my nose. “But you kept insisting that families keep their secrets. Families protect each other. Well, what about now? Who’s protecting us now?”

I direct the words at my father but keep my intense focus on my sister, watching her every twitch, every eye blink. Cora is half-crouched, knife in her right hand, coiled on the tightest of springs. I try not to think how I could be dead one minute from now. How my promise never to leave my son would be broken in the most painful way possible. I try to suppress the fear, work to calm myself, find a place of inner focus within this horrifying chaos. No guru could envision meditating during a life-or-death fight, but that’s exactly what I do. A three-second meditation. A single deep and purposeful breath, appreciating it could be one of my very last. A simple mantra, repeated only once.

I am.

This steadies me, giving me strength.

“You are,” my father answers, his voice a graveled monotone. “You’re both protecting yourselves now. You’re my family, but this fight isn’t mine.”

My voice matches his, calm and unwavering. “I don’t want to be part of this family anymore.”

“Okay,” Cora says.

She lunges with the blade.

Fifty-Nine

I’ve talked to a lot of cops. Talked to both victims and criminals. Researched my books to great lengths, knowing that no matter how few people may read my novels, I’m giving my audience accurate portrayals of intense and life-threatening situations. What it’s really like to face danger, push through to the other side, whatever side that may be.

There are many clichés said about such situations, but one I’ve been told dozens of times is how time slows down when danger is at its peak.

This happens for me now.

I see the knife coming at me. I have a thousand years to react. A thousand years all crammed into the space of maybe two seconds, but it’s all I need.

I begin my downward swing with the iron poker at Cora’s first movement, a push off her left foot. The arc of my weapon is in motion before that foot even leaves the ground. The blade has its own trajectory, extending out to the side, then circling in as Cora descends upon me.