“I’ll come with you,” Lucas said.
All she wanted was the illusion of being alone with her daughter. He wouldn’t let her have it. Karina clenched her teeth.
“That’s right,” Daniel said. “Bite your tongue. It will come in handy.”
Lucas gave him a flat stare. For a moment they stood still, then Daniel rolled his eyes and casually wandered out of the kitchen into the side hallway. Lucas moved in the opposite direction, through the doorway. Karina took Emily by the hand. “Come on, baby.”
The hallway cut through the house, straight to the door. They passed rooms: a library filled with books from floor to ceiling on the right, a large room with a giant flat-screen TV on the left, and then Lucas opened the door and they stepped on the porch into the sunlight. The yard was grass, small scrawny oaks and brush flanking it on both sides. A path led down the hill into the distance. To the left a huge oak out of sync with the rest of the scrub forest and probably planted, spread its branches.
A shaggy brown dog stepped out from behind the oak. As tall as a Great Dane, it trotted forward on massive legs, its long tail held straight behind it. There was something odd in the way it walked, waddling slightly, more like a bear than a dog.
Karina stepped between Emily and the beast.
The animal stopped. Large brown eyes stared at them from a massive head crowned with round ears.
“Don’t worry, he’s tame,” Lucas said behind her.
The meld of dog and bear peered at Lucas and let out a short snort.
“He doesn’t like it when I phase into my attack variant,” Lucas said. “It weirds him out for a couple of days. Cedric, don’t be a dick. Let the kid pet you.”
Another snort. She couldn’t really blame the dog. Considering how Lucas looked in his “attack variant” it was a wonder the dog stuck around at all.
Cedric pondered them for a long moment and waddled over. Emily stretched out her hand. Karina’s insides clenched into a tight knot.
Cedric nudged Emily’s hand with his nose, snorted again, and bumped the bulge in the front pocket of her hoodie.
“What do you have in your pocket?” Karina asked.
Emily dug into her pocket and pulled out a half-eaten apple.
Not again. Karina kept her voice gentle. “Emily, you know you’re not supposed to have that . . .”
Cedric sniffed at the apple. His mouth gaped open, revealing huge teeth.
“He won’t hurt her,” Lucas said with absolute certainty in his voice.
Emily held the apple out. Very carefully, almost gently, Cedric swiped it off her hand, sat on his behind, and raised the fruit to his mouth, holding it with long, dark claws. The black nose sniffed the apple, the jaws opened and closed, and the beast bit a small chunk from the fruit and chewed in obvious pleasure.
“He likes it!” Emily announced and jumped down off the steps into the yard. “Come on, Cedric!”
“Where are you going?” Karina took a step to follow.
“Just to the tree.”
The oak was barely fifty feet away. Karina bit her lip. Her instincts told her to clutch her child and not let go, but Emily needed to feel normal. She needed to play. Her daughter didn’t understand how precarious their situation was, she had no idea how vulnerable they were, and Karina had to keep it that way.
Emily was looking at her. “Can I go?”
“Yes. You can go.”
Emily headed toward the tree. Cedric finished his apple in a hurried gulp, rolled to his paws, and followed her to the tree.
Lucas leaned on a porch post next to Karina. She had expected him to somehow shrink in daylight, as if he were some sort of evil creature of the night whose power faded with the sun, but he remained just as big and menacing. If anything, the sun made it worse—she could see every detail of his severe face. Everything about him, the way he leaned against the rail, the way muscle bulged on his arms and chest, the way he surveyed the yard, inspecting his territory, communicated predator.
Lucas raised his face to the sun, closed his eyes, and smiled. The smile lasted only a moment, gone like a leaf blown by the breeze, but she had seen it. He was handsome and the danger he emanated sharpened that beauty to a lethal edge. He was beautiful in the same deadly way a tiger was beautiful, and now she was locked in a cage with him.
If he was on her side, nobody would ever bother them.
At the tree, Emily picked up a twig and tossed it. Cedric looked at the twig and back at her, slightly puzzled.
“What is he?” Karina asked.
“A bear-dog. We played with their genetics a few generations back. He’s gentle like a collie with the kids and he’s a lot smarter than an average dog. What’s the problem with her having an apple?”
Karina sat on the stairs. “She hoards food.”
“Why?”
She didn’t want to tell him. The less he knew about them, the less information he could use against her. “It makes her feel safe.”
By the tree Emily clapped her hands and explained something to Cedric. He sat on his butt again, listening to her.
“Was she adopted?” Lucas asked quietly.
“No.” She wouldn’t have expected him to know that adoptive children sometimes exhibited food hoarding. Now she had to explain more just to keep him from getting the wrong idea. “It happened after her father’s death. It’s not an eating disorder. She doesn’t want extra food; she’s just trying to control her environment. We handled it, but with everything that’s happened she might have relapsed. Please don’t berate her or yell at her for it. It . . .”
“It makes things worse,” he finished for her. “I know.”
“Let me have her,” she said, suddenly desperate. “Let me have her here with me. I thought I lost her on that fire escape. You have everything else—my freedom, my body, everything—and I just want one thing. Just let me keep my baby.”
Lucas frowned. He didn’t seem vicious now. “I’m not doing this to be an ass**le.”
“I’ll keep her out of the way . . .”
Cedric snarled at the bushes, baring his teeth, and lunged into the thicket.
Karina jumped to her feet. Before her knees had straightened, Lucas had leaped over the railing and was sprinting to the tree.
Emily stumbled back. Her mouth gaped in a surprised O.
Karina ran but she was so agonizingly slow.
Lucas reached Emily, pushed her back, out of the way, and crashed through the underbrush.
Karina lunged forward. Her hand closed about Emily’s shoulder. She grabbed her daughter and backed away, keeping her hand on her pocket, feeling the hard knife handle through the fabric of her jeans.