She flinches.
I regret it immediately.
Not enough to lie.
“I didn’t ask for that,” she says.
“I know.”
“I didn’t want him dead.”
I look at her.
She keeps her eyes on the road.
“I wanted him gone,” she says, voice breaking. “I wanted him away from August. Away from me. Away from you. I wanted to stop feeling him in every room before he entered it. I wanted to stop explaining myself to imaginary judges in my head. I wanted my son to stop flinching when a car door shut too hard.”
Her voice shakes harder now.
“I wanted him gone, Derby. But dead is so… final. And I keep thinking there should be grief where the relief is. And there is some. Maybe. I don’t know. There is horror. There is guilt. There is anger that I feel guilt. There is this awful part of me that keeps breathing deeper because he can’t come anymore. Then I hate that part too.”
I listen.
Just listen.
That may be the hardest damn thing I do on the entire trip.
Because every instinct says fix it. Tell her he deserved worse. Tell her relief is allowed. Tell her I would have done it if the Queens had not. Tell her there is nothing wrong with being glad a monster stopped hunting.
But that would make her grief smaller so I can be more comfortable.
“I don’t know who I am without him being the thing I’m running from.”
“That one I know.”
She looks at me.
I keep my gaze forward.
“When you stop running, there’s a lot of space,” I say. “Feels wrong at first. Like the quiet is a trick.”
“Yes.”
“You fill it slow.”
“With what?”
I look back at August sleeping.
“Courtrooms made of cereal boxes. Bad pancakes. Whatever weird-ass dinosaur that is.”
“Princess Chomp.”
“Still weird.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
“Haven’t we all.”