“She’s not well,” my mom said, quiet, wiping away the image, where it wasn’t perfect. She breathed on it to restore some life to the canvas.

In the background, Rain was talking to Chris again.

The words rocked me, stole away all rational and ordered thought. My mom ignored the impact of it, continuing to draw on the window.

I looked. I fixed my gaze on Amy, and I studied, pulling from memories of four years ago. Memories of two years ago, when she’d come to Victoria the Wretch, stole away all emotions, false and otherwise, and made her offers. Gave me her warnings.

She looked back, locking eyes with me.

The discomfort of me being present, her own shame, and the awkwardness of being between my dad and Marquis with Chris and Rain’s chatter in the background set aside… I couldn’t see it.

I one hundred percent believed it, but I couldn’t see it. I looked away.

A part of me desperately wanted to. That part of me wanted to see the illness, see a sign that would warn me, and in equal measure it would condemn me for not seeing it back then.

A part of me wanted this, wanted to not see, because it absolved past me to some degree.

“What tea?” Ashley asked. Part of an ongoing conversation I’d tuned out.

“Believe it or not, I’m not much of a snob,” Marquis answered her. “At this point I’ll drink what I can find.”

“You’ve lost standing in my eyes, Marquis.”

“Deservedly so. In my defense, the world did end, and I’m a long way from home.”

“Even so.”

“Yes. Even so.”

Kenzie wasn’t acting alarmed. Tristan still watched, still kept his back to Chris, his arms folded.

The guards remained hostile. The people in the other room were still arguing that their anti-parahuman soldiers should get freedom to act, or they’d cut off support we desperately needed.

All of this, the talk with Nieves, a pretext, I was guessing. An excuse.

I felt like I was dealing with frying pans and fires. A suffocating room, the fate of millions, tensions between old friends. My mom and my guilt there.

I turned my eyes back to my mom’s work. Letters.

‘We need help’, she’d written. She started on the next word. A vertical line—

A guard moved from his spot. Casually, my mom wiped the message away. She met my eyes for a moment, then focused her gaze intently on the snowstorm outside.

Breaking 14.6

Breaking from their ranks to some degree, a handful of the soldiers found positions where they leaned against walls or sat on tables. The one who had interrupted my mother in the middle of writing her plea for help was the one I was most mindful of, because he was being so very mindful of his gun.