Lysander took the next day off work, his temples pounding after a night filled with anxiety fueled nightmares. He broke into his stash of tea leaves and brewed a cup of something strong and black, curling himself into the corner of his sofa and sipping at it while trying to distract himself with a book. The words bled before his eyes, though, and he found he couldn’t concentrate, so he slumped back to his bed and took a nap not even two hours after he had gotten up for the day. The cats didn’t seem to mind joining him in his lazy day, but Bingley fussed over him, whining and crying for play. He didn’t have it in him, so he left the back door open for the majority of the day, letting the dog burn himself out chasing birds off the back fence. The air that blew in had a slight chill, but Lysander simply dug himself deeper into his nest of blankets and allowed himself to simply drift in and out of consciousness, only rousing to relieve and feed himself.

The day after a panic attack was sometimes worse than the attack itself, all the motivation sucked out of him and replaced by exhaustion and apathy.

He felt almost like himself again by the time the knock on his door came in the evening. He trudged over to the door and barely glanced through the peephole before allowing Red access. She pushed through the door and stopped short once she saw him.

“Jeez, what happened to you?” she asked, nose wrinkling at his appearance. He pulled at the fabric of his ratty black sweatpants and sighed.

“Nothing, just a bad couple days,” he answered, taking a seat on the couch. She frowned and followed him, shutting the door behind her.

“You look like shit,” she said bluntly.

He glared at her, though he couldn’t deny that he probably did. He could feel the weight of his greasy black hair sticking to his scalp, patchy stubble lining his jaw. “Yeah, what else is new. What’s the news today?”

“Don’t get snippy with me, friend. I didn’t even get mad that you apparently decided to cancel on me on Sunday,” she replied.

He remembered Noah standing in his apartment and asking him to watch out for her and felt chastened. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep after cleaning my apartment,” he said, infusing as much genuine regret as he could into his tone.

“What are you, an old lady?” she asked with a laugh. “But yeah, it’s no big deal. I’m just about ready to make our move.”

That woke him up. “What, really? So, are we doing it earlier then?”

“No, I think it’ll still be better to wait until this weekend. The two week thing is kinda my whole schtick, anyways. He’s usually alone on Sundays, right?”

“As far as I know, he’s always alone at home since Miria and I moved out.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. He has patterns for every day of the week. Both last Monday and this Monday, he had oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins for breakfast before taking a thirty minute jog through the west side of his neighborhood, whereas today and last Tuesday, he had a multigrain bagel with cream cheese and a twenty minute walk before work. Does that match with what you know of him?”

Lysander sat, mouth slightly agape. “Uuuh, yeah. That’s Joseph. He had daily menu boards in the house that the house cook had to follow every week. He hates change. I have no idea how you know any of that, but yeah.”

“Excellent! I’ll keep watch this week to make sure he doesn’t do anything to diverge and then we’ll move this weekend. He’ll be a changed man by Monday morning,” she said, completely bypassing his unspoken question about her methods.

“That-that’s great,” he stammered. Having a concrete deadline made his stomach swoop as though the floor had suddenly disappeared from under him. It was a rush, exciting in a death defying way.

“You have a lot of confidence in a woman you just met a week ago, friend,” she said seemingly from nowhere. He cocked his head, a confused look painting his features. Just as he opened his mouth to question her, however, another knock sounded on his door.

The blood instantly drained from his face. He hadn’t been expecting anyone, and he could only assume that they had somehow been discovered and that the door was about to be blasted open by a team of Barrier Patrol soldiers, guns blazing. Red simply gave the door a considering look, slowly standing and creeping to the door. She had an arm flung out in his direction, silently requesting his stillness. As she peered through the peephole in the door, he heard a small exhalation that sounded like relief before she quickly moved back across the room to him. Another--more frantic--knock came as Red leaned down and whispered in his ear, “It’s Miria. Get the door and act normal.” Then she disappeared into his bedroom, never making so much as a rustling sound. He wondered briefly why she didn’t leave through the back garden but figured she might make too much noise trying to scurry over the high fence anyways.

After a beat, he stood and allowed Miria into his apartment.

“Hey, Mir, what’s up? You okay?” he asked. She had never visited his home, their meetups always happening at restaurants or her penthouse. She looked windblown, flyaways sticking up around her head and her cheeks red from the chill. The late March night had grown unseasonably cold, a frost almost certain to cover the burgeoning spring green the next morning.

“Yeah, yes, I’m sorry,” she stuttered out, rubbing her hands together to generate some body heat as he shut the door behind her, “I was worried. I heard from Sam that Blair took you home yesterday and then you didn’t show up today.”

“Oh,” he said lamely, guilt at making her worry crowding into his mind, “Yeah, I just had a killer migraine so I called in. I’ll be around tomorrow, no worries.” He limply gestured at the phone in the corner. Most households couldn’t afford the convenience, but Joseph had insisted that he have a phone line installed and connected to both his workplace and the estate in case something happened. It was only to be used for emergencies, given the expense of even one call, but Lysander had happily shouldered the monetary burden in order to not have to brave Campbell Corporation that day.

Relief caused her shoulders to sag, and another regretful pang struck Lysander in the chest. “I’m so glad,” she said on an exhale before continuing, “I heard that my Uncle Tony showed up yesterday too. I thought maybe--well, honestly, I don’t really know what I thought, but I just had to check on you.”

He rubbed the back of his head, greasy hair tangling and standing up with his ministrations. “You heard about that, huh? It was no big deal.” He downplayed the situation, not wanting to worry her further.

She bit her lip, her stark white teeth gnawing at the sensitive skin. “I feel like you’re keeping stuff from me, Lys,” she said and now she sounded hurt, and Lysander’s chest clenched at the downcast expression she gave him.

He sighed and decided to share at least something with her, something largely innocuous but would help her to feel included in his loop. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to worry. Honestly, your uncle confronted me yesterday, said he was there to give me ‘advice’ but it felt more like he was threatening me. I, uh, had a pretty bad panic attack afterward.”

A dark expression crossed her face, almost imperceptible behind the deep genuine concern she had for him at the admission, but Lysander saw it by pure virtue of being so familiar with her and he shuddered, uncomfortable for the first time in his memory in her presence.

“I’m so sorry about him, Lys. He’s always such a jerk to you!” she shouted before wheeling on him, “Also! I don’t know why you tried to keep this from me! You’re my best friend! It hurts me when you don’t tell me things.”

“You don’t have to apologize for your family, Mir. It’s not your fault your uncle’s a creep. And I’m sorry for keeping it from you, okay? I just hate seeing you sad.”

“I’m allowed to feel sad about things sometimes!”

Lysander very suddenly had no idea why they were arguing, having lost the thread of the conversation. Miria rarely got angry enough to yell at him, the last time happening just after he told her he planned to move into his own place. “I know that. I shouldn’t have implied that you can’t.”

Frustrated tears welled in the corners of her eyes. “It’s like ever since I rejected you, you treat me differently.”

Lysander stiffened, the memory of bleeding his heart open to her only to have her turn him away hurting him in ways that he thought he had gotten over. “That’s not fair, Miria. You know that’s not fair. I’m doing the best I can to deal with those feelings.”

“I wish you had never told me how you felt. I just want to go back to the way it was,” she whispered, the words stabbing into him with how close they rang true to his own feelings on the matter.

“Yeah, well, we can’t,” he said bitterly, anger just starting to churn unpleasantly through him.

She gave him a lingering look, her brown eyes shimmering in the lamp light shining through the pleats of his blinds. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lys. I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said finally, turning away from him and bundling back up for the walk back to the train station. Defeated, he simply let her out of the apartment and collapsed onto the sofa, drained in every possible way.

“Well, that was something,” Red said as she walked back into the living room. Her voice startled him, having forgotten she was even there in the tension between Miria and himself.

“You heard everything then?” he asked, barely even caring about all the personal bits she must have heard.

“I mean, I was just hiding in your closet, so yeah,” she admitted easily, “You guys apologize to each other way too much. You barely even have time to be friends between all the groveling.”

He glared at her, anger reforming in a toxic tempestuous swirl in his mind, temper already frayed from the earlier altercation. “What would you even know about it? Do you even have friends? I mean, other than Captain Joyful who you live with?”

She raised a brow at him. “When would I have time to make friends?” she asked, the question clearly rhetorical.

“Yeah, I figured that,” he grumbled.

“Is it true that Anthony Campbell visited you?” she queried, changing the subject abruptly.

“Ugh, yes! He did. It’s fine, he’s just an asshole who’s always hated me,” he ranted, tired of thinking about the interaction from the day before, already feeling haunted by the memory of Anthony’s gray uniform in his chair.

“Hmm, well, I can’t argue with that. He’s a piece of work, from what I understand,” she said, her tone strange.

“Yeah. You’re lucky you’ve never met him. He hates the Shifted more than anyone.”

“Lucky, indeed.”

He sighed heavily, scrubbing a rough hand over his eyes. When he finished, he saw Red watching him with a contemplative look. “What is it?” he asked with a measure of trepidation--nothing good could come from such a look on her face.

“You’re in love with her?” The question confused him, largely because he didn’t really understand how it was her business.

“I mean, I was...Maybe still am. I don’t really know anymore, to be honest,” he admitted to her. This knowledge didn’t cost him anything to share--other than some minor embarrassment about discussing his love life, evidenced by the redness flushing up his collar up to the tips of his ears.

“Mm, interesting,” she said simply before busying herself with buttoning her jacket back up, preparing to leave.

“Whoa, wait, weren’t we in the middle of something before Miria showed up?” He stopped her, shooting back to his feet. She looked up at him, disinterested.

“Were we? I think we covered everything,” she mused.

He racked his brain for where they had left the conversation before the interruption, sure that there had been something he wanted to ask her, but couldn’t bring anything specific to mind, other than his awe at her ability to know everything about Joseph.

“Oh, alright then. I guess I’ll see you on Thursday? Unless you’re planning to randomly drop in on me tomorrow,” he joked, surprising himself with his ability to tease her.

“Pft. At this point, I’m not even sure you would notice. You never do, until I’m talking to you. Is it something I say?” she jested in return, smirking at him, the strange atmosphere between them clearing at last.

“You’re the only person who calls me ‘friend’, so it might be,” he laughed, “Seriously, I don’t think people do that outside of books. Did you learn your social skills from trash fiction?”

She shrugged. “Who’s to say? Maybe I’m just naturally this charming, friend.”

Shaking his head at her antics, he moved to let her out of the apartment, unlocking the door and registering her exit with the system. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure.”

“See ya Thursday, Xander,” she called over her shoulder as she marched into the frigid wind, popping the collar of her coat to cover her neck.

Mirianna twisted a piece of stray thread coming undone from her peacoat, threading it around her finger and watching the tips bloat and turn white from the pressure. The train rattled along the track, the clacking sound almost soothing in the dull hush that settled over the cabin. The conductors had dimmed the lights during the journey back to the city, in respect for those people riding the late train after work. Miria appreciated the break from the harsh fluorescents, her sole source of light coming from the strip of emergency lights down the aisle.

She hadn’t meant to fight with Lysander, but her temper was becoming shorter and shorter these days, though sometimes the bright flashes of anger relieved her--the emotion cutting through the dullness that settled over her shoulders otherwise. Besides, it was hypocritical of her to be mad at Lysander for keeping secrets.

She had some of her own, after all. Nothing serious, just silly things like the fight she had had with her father during their Wednesday dinner. He had wanted to enlist her aid in bringing Lysander back to the city, and while she very much wanted that as well, if only to have close proximity on those days when they both needed a shoulder to lean on, she couldn’t pressure him into something he so clearly didn’t want.

Joseph had been furious with her rejection, icy fury clenching his features while he ticked off a list of ways in which she had failed him. The rest of the time she had spent sinking lower and lower into her chair, pushing food around her plate without ever raising the tines of her fork to her mouth. She pictured her mother and Lysander around the table with them, their empty places filled with their warmth once more, the silence that settled like frost between her and her father shattered by the laughter and ease that her mother brought to any room or by Lysander awkwardly receiving praise for his newest recipe.

Even now, the memories cut into her chest, carving out her heart--nostalgia for a life she could never have again making her fingers tremble in unfulfillable yearning.

But she couldn’t tell Lysander any of that. He would only fuss over her, and she couldn’t stand his sympathy, not about this, not when he so clearly needed space away from her family.

She just wished sometimes that she could also take a break from being a Campbell.

It was Thursday and Red was having a bad day. She realized this as her opponent landed a solid punch to her jaw, the pain reverberating through her skull. Twisting with the momentum of his fist, she ducked low and spun a kick into his knees. Unable to dodge, he thudded to the concrete across from her, a sliver of his face illuminated by the lights coming from the Campbell Corporation signage. The alley across the street from Campbell Corp was tight as it receded farther from polite civilization into murky shadows that stunk of garbage and bad hygiene, these tucked away corners being havens for the many homeless people of the city. When she had started her surveillance of the offices, she had bribed the squatters back here to relocate, giving them enough to get across town and get a warm meal.

Today’s interloper was the third assassin she had had to get rid of in the past week and a half. Typically, she didn’t make a habit of dissuading competition--competition was good for her rates and they took the jobs she had no interest in besides--but these ones all had a target painted on the person she had sworn to herself to protect--another thing she didn’t make a habit of, the protecting, not the swearing.

Wasting no time, Red straddled the other assassin, pinning his arms under her knees and getting vindictive pleasure from digging her kneecaps into the muscle of his biceps. Leaning over him, she laced her thumbs together and began to place pressure on his windpipe, not enough to kill--yet--just enough for extreme discomfort. The other two before him had been all too willing to leave with just some well placed threats, but this one was persistent, attacking her when she confronted him instead of cowering away. She couldn’t really fault him for his bravery, but she did resent that she had to get her hands dirty with him now.

“Who hired you?” she hissed at her captive. She could feel his throat bobbing in a compulsive attempt to swallow.

Rather than answer her, he spit onto her face with whatever saliva he still had in his mouth, the globule landing on her right cheek. Glaring icily at him, she wiped it away with her shoulder, deepening the pressure she had on his windpipe. He gagged at the addition and she loosened back to where she had been.

“I will kill you,” she told him. She had no compunctions against it, though she would rather that he just cooperated to make things easier. She had places to be, after all.

“Then do it. I don’t betray my clients,” the man forced out. The implication he made sent a thrill of anger through her body, but she shoved it aside, bottling it up for later when she had the time to feel.

“Aww, that’s cute, the little loyalty thing you’ve got going on,” she cooed before pressing the entirety of her weight into him. He bucked wildly, his body thrashing and trying to unseat her. “The problem is that I already know the answer. I just wanted a little confirmation from you, since you didn’t run away and all.”

Just then, he was able to shift her weight just high enough on his hips to loose his thighs and he kneed her sharply in the middle of her spine, knocking the wind out of her momentarily. The shock of the blow slid her knees to the left and freed his right arm. He swung at her head, but she was already in motion, planting her hands on either side of his neck and flipping over him gracefully.

And then he was up and running. She turned at the sound of his footsteps disappearing onto the main street and cursed. She couldn’t very well give chase in the middle of the city without drawing unwanted attention to herself, but she didn’t very much want him getting away either, for obvious reasons. It didn’t surprise her that he ran rather than continue facing her, given her Shifted reputation, her abilities well suited to a one on one fight. With a rush, the pain from his earlier punch flooded back, pounding unpleasantly in her temples. Without the adrenaline fueling her, she noticed that her lip had split slightly at the impact. Groaning in frustration, she scrubbed away the blood on her chin. She hardly looked presentable now, though, which would make it difficult to catch the train without questions.

Her opponent had made things exponentially more difficult for her that night, and she was going to be late.

She just wished that Lysander could appreciate all the shit she dealt with for him.

Lysander glanced nervously at the clock for what had to be the thirtieth time in the last five minutes.

Red was late, and she was never late. If anything, she usually ended up annoyingly early. He was worried that she had been caught spying, decently positive once again that his apartment was about to be raided by Barrier Patrol. Mostly though he just felt uneasy at the idea that she might have gotten injured somehow while doing a job he had hired her for. While he would hardly call her his friend, he could at least admit to feeling a grudging sort of affection for her, solidly placing her among his acquaintances.

However, when she did show up--thirty-four minutes late, exactly--and he saw the swelling on her jaw and blood crusting on a split in her lip, he realized--quite suddenly--that he had underestimated how much he actually liked her, if the concern that welled up within him was any indication.

“Oh my god, what happened?” he exclaimed as soon as she was through the door. He raised a hand to touch her cheek but halted the movement between them, unsure if he was allowed.

She waved her hand. “Nothing. Newsflash, being Shifted is dangerous,” she snarked, turning from him and sitting on the couch. Bingley jumped up with her, placing his head in her lap and licking her hand.

“Well, yes, but you look like you got beat up,” he said as he followed her, standing in front of her and feeling useless. He kept raising and lowering his hands in a bit of a flail while he internally debated how to help her.

“Thank you for stating the obvious, friend,” she grumbled, understandably grumpy with the turn of events. Exasperated, he finally broke out of his stupor and ran to the bathroom, wetting a clean washcloth and grabbing his antibacterial cream. When he got back to the living room, he kneeled in front of her and reached the washcloth to her face, intending to dab the dry blood from her chin.She flinched away and glared at him, grabbing his hand to stop him from getting any closer. Bingley whined and pawed at their arms.

A water droplet coalesced on the corner of the cloth and dripped onto her lap. “I’m just trying to help,” he said gently. When he had to bathe the cats, he used the same tone, both coaxing and placating.

Giving him one final irritated once over, she dropped his wrist and crossed her arms sulkily. “Why are you like this?” The question was delivered to the air more than to him, so he didn’t bother to answer, simply approaching her chin slowly and carefully wiping away the blood and dirt. He pressed his free hand to her cheek and turned her to face him so he could get the other side, focused entirely on his task. Red bored a hole into the top of his skull watching him. Once the wound was clean, he squeezed a dab of antibacterial cream onto his finger and smoothed it over the cut below her lips where it had split. He visually inspected his handiwork and stood, knees creaking from crouching so long. Satisfied, he threw the soiled washcloth into his room to deal with later and went to the freezer to make a makeshift ice pack, dumping some ice cubes into a sandwich baggie and wrapping it in a kitchen towel.

“Why are you even doing this? It’s not like you have to take care of me,” she groused, all of her usual bravado absent in favor of a darker aspect. He handed her the ice pack--which she held to her swollen cheek--and sat beside her instead of answering because the truth was that he didn’t really know why other than just an innate desire to be useful, a desire that taking care of her fulfilled. He had never been the type of person who could watch someone suffering and do nothing.

But instead of any of that (all of which he felt somewhat embarrassed to admit), he blurted, “Well, Noah asked me to take care of you.”

Red stilled beside him. “He did what now?” she asked lowly, her voice cast from snow and ice.

Lysander’s heart picked up speed. He hadn’t thought the admission would irritate her so much. “Uhhh, yeah. He came by last weekend. He wanted me to watch out for you or something. I told him I’m basically useless, but he said that you’re reckless, so he wanted me to try to curb those impulses or something, I don’t know,” he babbled, the words flowing faster than he could think them through.

“So you just, what? Agreed to that? What the hell?” Her fury now turned hot and demanding, shouting at him and throwing the ice pack onto the coffee table.

He didn’t really know why she was so mad. Did she feel belittled by him and Noah? “I don’t know. I didn’t really see the harm in it?”

“The harm is that it’s my job to protect you, which would be made impossible if you just went off and tried to do some dumb heroic bullshit. Understand?” she ground out, her fingers now dug into the collar of his shirt. His first impulsive feeling of fear got quickly washed away by confusion.

“Protect me? What do you mean?” he asked. The anger on her face melted off instantaneously, replaced by a blink of pure unadulterated panic before smoothing back into her normal facade of indifference. She released her grip on him and sat back into the corner of the couch, running soothing fingers through Bingley’s fur. The dog had begun to cry at the tension between them, running and grabbing different toys and trying to distract them from each other.

“I just meant that while I’m on this job for you, it’s my responsibility to see us both through to the other side, y’know?” she said. While the explanation seemed reasonable enough, Lysander got the distinct impression that it wasn’t the full story, but he didn’t have the necessary gall to press her and risk her anger again.

“Ah, gotcha,” he said. “You know, you don’t have to be like those other Shifted.” Even though he had hired her to commit a crime for him, he still thought that she could be better than that, though he wasn’t sure what other options she had.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she questioned, a chip of ice lodged in her tone.

“I just meant that you don’t have to be a criminal, like other Shifted. You said you got exiled when you were just seven, so it’s not like you were always bad. Aren’t there Shifted out there who are just normal exiled people and not like black market dealers or assassins?” None of what he was saying made much sense, but he had started the conversation, so he felt obligated to continue running his mouth until a point emerged.

She let out a harsh laugh, a single hard exhalation of air. “You’ve got it twisted there, friend. Being Shifted and being exiled are two entirely different things that you peabrains on the inside started equating because you all got sucked into some weird slangy groupthink,” she said in a rush, still clearly angry from before and struggling to maintain her composure.

“Well, then, which one are you?” he asked, cowed by the force of her irritation. He didn’t know the difference still, but she seemed willing enough to enlighten him.

“I am Shifted, Noah is Shifted, but not everyone out there is Shifted,” she explained, using her hands like brackets to showcase the groupings. “Ugh, you know what? It doesn’t even matter, honestly. You don’t have to worry about this shit. That’s my job.”

“It doesn’t all have to be just your job. I can help you,” he offered. Outside of his deal with Noah, he genuinely wanted to be of use to her in some way, especially considering the size of the burden he was placing on her.

“I love that you think that, but it’s beyond you, friend.” With that, she ended the conversation, drifting back into a slouch on the sofa.

Lysander felt a surge of offense at the implication--he couldn’t help it. And yet, as her eyes slid closed, exhaustion heavy on her brow, he also couldn’t bring himself to continue the argument. Clearly, she was dealing with a lot and he had already contributed enough to the stack without stressing her out with his questions.

So instead, he waited silently for her to change the subject, content to exist beside her in that moment. Cracking open one green eye, she watched him. The low light of the room cast her eyes in shadow, causing the hue to darken to the color of pine.

“It’s almost time. You feel ready?” she asked at last.

“I should be asking you that. I don’t really have to do anything other than hope that you pull it off.”

“True, but if all goes according to plan, your life will be pretty different come Monday.”

“Well, yeah, that is the goal. It’ll be nice to have my family back.”

Both of her eyes were open now, examining his face in that way that she had of trying to see beneath his upper layers to the truth at the heart of him. “Yes, I’m sure Miria will be pleased as well.”

“I hope so,” he said quietly, again remembering Miria storming out on Tuesday. They had made up the next day at work, both of them muttering ‘sorry’ to each other on the ride up to their offices. Once the work day was over, Miria was bidding him the same cheerful goodbye as usual as she left to get ready for her Wednesday dinner. Some guilt still chewed at him for hiding this from her, but his resolution held firm.

Red appeared as though she wanted to ask him another question, but instead she twisted her lips and glanced at the large window that took up most of the wall to the left of his front door, slim slices of the outside just visible through the cracks in the cheap white blinds covering it. “It’s late. We’ll meet again on Saturday, and not again until Monday night after it’s all over. We’ll discuss payment then.”

With that, she stood, stretching her back. Bingley followed in her wake as she trailed to the door. Lysander unlocked the door and opened it for her, feeling oddly deflated at the way she was leaving things. “Okay, sounds good. Be safe.”

A strange look crossed her face at the well wish, her brows pinching momentarily, her eyes darkening as her head tilted marginally down. “Yeah, okay.”

And with that, she was gone, her red hair billowing behind her like a cloud of fire.

Joseph Campbell realigned the pens on his desk, the edges creating a perfect line across the top of a neatly stacked pile of invoices and spreadsheets that he intended to look over in the morning. The moon reflected off the screen of the computer to his right, the light of it just peeking over the roof of the building across the street. While it no longer connected to the internet, it still worked as an easy means of creating documents and spreadsheets. Given the rarity of the technology, though, he had the only one in the entire building, and even then, he rarely used it, preferring the feeling and permanence of pen marks on a page. When Lysander had worked doing advertisements--before there was no longer any need to do so, given the lack of competition--Joseph would often let him use his computer to create designs and slogans, but that felt like ages ago now. He picked up the sole photo on his large desk, the mahogany wood polished to a sheen, clean to the point that he could see the blurry reflection of his arm as he reached across it. Mirianna and Lysander smiled up at him, the picture taken when the pair had been only twelve. They had their arms around each other, their limbs gangly and awkward as preteens, Lysander already beginning to tower over Miria. Lysander’s right knee had an aggressive scab showing from under his shorts, the product of a bicycle accident, and Miria had a melting strawberry ice cream cone clutched in her free hand.

And there, standing behind them and kneeling to place her head on Miria’s shoulder, was Avianna, his wife. The strands of her hair tangled together with her daughter’s, the shade just a kiss darker. She was winking at the camera, at him, who held it, all of them at Edgewater Park for a rare family outing. He placed his fingertips over her face before flipping the frame face down onto his desk and massaging the bridge of his nose. Avi would be ashamed of him, her demeanor much closer to Lysander’s than his own or even Mirianna’s. Silently, in the empty space of his office, he vowed to speak with Lysander again the next day, anything to banish the ghost of her from over his shoulder. He didn’t have many options for many things in his life, but he could at least do this one thing for her before he ruined everything they had fought for.

That would have to be enough.