a P

t silent. The

shing the red mark on her cheek. His voice was tender, wrecked, dripping with a conc

front of everyone! You're a violent, unhinged, trailer-park nobody and you just p

ly deranged. Someone call the cops. Caroline, don't cry, we'

just wanted to teach her a lesson. Knock the box out of her hands so she'd stop being so dramatic

hat the fuck is wrong with you? She barely touched your

nto the cracked urn with the tenderness of a woman holding a dying child. The roses were c

ow, carrying across the si

lag-draped wood. The military i

ld. Their remains were repatriated this morning. I collected them alone because you couldn't be bothered to answer your phone." I

Even the waves

l your own dead parents' story to guilt-trip Caroline into not pressing charges. 'Oh no, it's he

ized it. A backhand, clean and shar

shrieked. I pinned her wrists, my knee on her sternum, and struck-controlled, precise, militar

hem up,

Vance grabbe

ing. Marcus lunged. I sidestepped, drove an elbow into his solar plexus, and swept his legs

urring with grim satisfaction. Five years of special operat

I'm overreacting. That I should apologize to the woman who scattered my dead parents in

ing, mascara streaked, sand in her hai

en closed it. Something in my expression to

ash from the sand with her manicured fingers, pressing it back i

oment I just looked at her-kneeling in the sand, mascara streaked, her

uiet enough that only she could hear, "reme

y. The urn against my chest. The white

e called my nam