“Amelia Bell, I know you’re in there.”
August starts to cry.
Not loud.
Worse.
Quiet and terrified, his face pressed into his mother’s hip.
Derby steps in front of them before anyone tells him to.
He is no longer joking. No longer pretending irritation.
He is a wall.
A mean, tattooed, furious wall.
Legend looks up at Amelia.
For one heartbeat, brother and sister stare at each other across the old jailhouse air.
No proof.
No test.
No certainty.
Only a woman shaking at the top of his stairs and the man who hurt her calling from outside his gate.
That is enough.
Legend turns toward the door.
“Keep her upstairs,” he says.
Derby’s answer is immediate. “Done.”
I look at Amelia. “Stay with August.”
Her lips part, but no sound comes.
I soften my voice. “He doesn’t get past the gate.”
Jeremy shouts again, uglier now. “You think these people will save you?”
Legend smiles.
It ain’t nice.
It ain’t sane.
It belongs to Hell.
Then the man I love opens the clubhouse door and walks into the rain.
The Kings follow him.
I stay on the stairs between Amelia and the world that came to drag her back, and I understand with cold, perfect clarity that whatever blood says later, the choice has already been made.