Page 141 of Thorne
The woman who revived me in a server room filled with poisoned air.
The woman who refused to let me die.
That's what I see.
The trial will come. The verdict will be what it is. But in this room, in this cabin, in this life we've built from the wreckage of everything that tried to destroy us—she repaid her debt.
Now, it's my turn to repay what I owe her.
Because I sure as hell owe her, after everything I did to her.
I press a kiss to her shoulder and close my eyes.
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I don't set an alarm.
I wake to a weight on my chest that's too small to be Julianna.
Lily.
She climbed onto the bed sometime in the night, wedging herself between us. Her face is pressed against my shoulder. Her fist is tangled in Julianna's shirt. Her breathing is slow, even, and completely at peace.
Julianna is already awake. She's watching me over Lily's head.
I reach across. Find her hand. Squeeze once.
She squeezes back.
The trial will be hard. The recovery for the thousands of victims will be longer. The child growing in her belly will arrive in a world still full of broken things.
But the beast is in its cage.
The people are still here.
Lily shifts, muttering something about prime numbers in her sleep. Julianna stifles a laugh. My chest does something that feels suspiciously like joy.
I kiss my daughter's head. I hold the hand of the woman I love. I close my eyes and breathe.
For the first time, the math of our lives actually makes sense.
38
The Logic Of Yes
THORNE
Six Months Later
The couch is toosmall for three people.
Lily doesn't care. She's wedged between us, Theodore in her lap, a piece of paper covered in numbers balanced on the dinosaur's head. The TV is on. Some animated show about a princess who solves problems with math, but she's not watching. She's explaining.
"And then seven goes into forty-nine exactly seven times, which is why seven is sneaky. It hides inside itself. Like a spy."
"It's a square." Julianna's voice is warm. Different from what it was six months ago. Softer. "Seven times seven equals forty-nine. And forty-nine divided by seven equals seven. The number comes back to itself."
"Exactly." Lily bounces. "That's what I've been saying."
I watch them. My daughter and the woman who saved her. The woman who took a bullet, finished an upload, stopped breathing, and came back.
