I grabbed a paperweight to re-nail the amulet into one of the walls while he shoved a solid wood desk in front of the door. And then he eased himself down in front of me. Between all the running and panic and the solid wood desk, he was panting. He removed his supplies without a word, transferring them to me. First the amulet, then the rack of thread. And then he took up the needle, threading the amulet while I wore it.

“Why?” was all I asked.

“In case I can’t finish.”

He knotted it off, but his hands were shaking. I took the needle from him to thread it with the final color.

I yelped at a knocking on the door, jolting my heart. Now that we had a moment to breathe in the thick of battle … I was terrified. Not of death itself, but of leaving everyone behind where I couldn’t look out for them. Of not saying everything. Not doing enough.

“I love you, Jember,” I blurted.

“Don’t get emotional,” he said, taking the needle back to work. “We’re almost done.”

“I wanted to say it, in case I die.”

“You’re not going to die. Keep your head, Andromeda.”

There was a loud snap as the solid wood door cracked a little.

“You called me your daughter earlier,” I said, as the door cracked again. “Did you mean it?”

The door flew open, breaking and sending splinters flying as it slammed against the heavy desk.

“Not now,” Jember said, his voice tight.

Again, and the desk legs screeched against the floor.

“Did you?” I asked quickly.

Again.

“Yes, I meant it,” he said.

Again, but this time the hyena’s snout could fit through the space in the door.

“Then I love you, Jember. You’re my father, and you’ve done what you could. That’s all I could ever ask for.”

Jember was a despicable excuse for a human sometimes. But he took care of me, cared about me, in his own way. And if I was going to die, I wanted it to be for the boy I loved, for the girl I called friend, and for my father, not for a man I resented for withholding love from me.

Besides, his effort to keep me alive was love, if that’s all we had.

And that’s all we had.

So, I would love him, because love made me braver … and I would die brave, if nothing else.

The hyena snaked through the opening and rushed toward us, colliding with the shield I had nailed on the wall. Jember worked, without acknowledgment to anything, as the hyena broke the shield closer and closer. I couldn’t tell which amulet it was trying to work against, the one on the wall or Jember’s. But it was getting closer far too quickly.

And the amulet didn’t feel finished.