What my father says brings tears to my eyes. He’s choosing me over a nation—over an entire hemisphere. It’s the most foolish decision he’s ever made, but it’s also the moment I feel the sheer force of my father’s love for me. He won’t let the boogeyman touch me.

“That’s your official decision?” Marco asks.

“It is.”

“We have to take Serenity,” Marco says. “And we will use force.” At his words, the WUN soldiers cluster around my father and me, but it doesn’t make me feel safe. The king’s soldiers outnumber ours, and they’re better equipped. Not to mention that I no longer have a clean shot with them blocking me.

My father grabs my hand and pulls me behind him. Unlike me, my father’s tall stature doesn’t shield him from our enemies. Not completely.

“Dad—” I whisper.

“You’re going to have to go through me,” my father says to Marco, ignoring me.

My hand twitches and I barely breathe. Something’s about to happen, and now I can’t see anything beyond the cocoon of bodies surrounding me. Around us WUN soldiers are casting my father sideways glances. Right now he’s the commanding officer, and they’re waiting for him to make the call. I already know he won’t be the first one to spill blood.

“So be it,” Marco says.

Before I can so much as grab for my gun, someone fires a shot, and then another. Blood and bone spray down on me, and then my father is falling, my father who’s now missing the back of his head.

I can’t hear anything, the shots are still ringing in my ears. But I know I’m screaming, and now I’ve crumpled to the ground, holding my father’s broken body to me.

My father, who taught me how to ride a bike, how to shoot a gun, how to be a diplomat and a decent human being. My father, my last remaining family.

My father.

My father. Murdered in front of my eyes.

Around me, I can sense movement, and I hear more gunshots go off. I stand, letting my father’s slick body slide off my arms.

I’ve heard stories before about how grief can turn into bloodlust, but I’ve never experienced it before. Not until this moment. It builds like poison in my veins, converting my expanding grief into something violent.

Now I am a force of nature; I am the embodiment of rage. Enemy soldiers are coming at me, and I force my elbow into the neck of one and the solar plexus of another. I grab the gun from my bodice, and I begin shooting the enemy alongside my guards. Headshots. All of them.