Page 40 of Beyond Redemption

“Thank you,” I said, nodding to her as she turned to leave.

Inside, everything was quiet, the skylights restricting light. Olive slept curled on her side, one hand on Stella who was sprawled across the bed—and Olive—like a starfish. Bodhi snored softly above them.

I was hesitant to wake them up, instead deciding to sit on the bench at the end of our bunk. Liis sat next to me, and we collectively sighed.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” she whispered.

“Maybe we should,” I said. “We need a game plan to mitigate violence if it comes to that.”

“What can we say?” she muttered. “How do we help them understand?”

“We can’t. We can only apologize, take whatever they have to say, and let them see her.”

“That’s not how it’s going to go,” she said, leaning her temple against my shoulder.

“I know,” I said, leaning my head back against the bunk’s metal frame.

Chapter Seven

Liis

By the time the sun dipped low enough to turn the windows amber, the adobe home we’d been assigned had almost stopped feeling borrowed.

That surprised me.

I stood at the sink, sleeves pushed to my elbows, warm water running over my hands as I rinsed the last of the dinner plates. The home was modest, barely two thousand square feet, single story, and low profile, built and decorated to feel unmistakably domestic—an intentional choice meant to ease families new to the compound into the idea that this was still home. I recognized the subtle, benign manipulation for what it was, the intent behind the careful normalcy, yet I was settling in with disarming ease.

Every appliance worked and appeared to be only a few years old. The cabinets opened cleanly, the stove heated evenly, the water pressure steady, with hot water on demand. After leaving the home I loved with no say in where we would land, that kind of reliability felt profoundly reassuring.

Towels were folded with military precision in the hall linen closet, with extras stacked beneath. A crib stood assembled in Stella’s room, the mattress sealed in plastic until I tore it open myself. A baby monitor charged quietly on the dresser. Every exterior doorknob, cabinet, and outlet had already been toddler proofed.

The pantry held staples and shelf-stable basics, nothing indulgent, but nothing overlooked. Cleaning supplies waited beneath the kitchen sink, labels turned forward. Dishes and silverware, pots and pans, each matching but unremarkable, were stacked neatly in their cabinets and drawers. In the bathroom, toothbrushes sat sealed on the cabinet next to unopened bottles of shampoo and soap. Ibuprofen, floss, and bandages were arranged neatly in the medicine cabinet.

By the door, a set of keys had been cut and labeled, resting in a glass dish on the narrow entry table. Phone chargers were already plugged in, cords coiled neatly and ready for use.

The thoroughness of General Marcel’s militia was unnerving in its competence, especially given they had less than twenty-four hours to prepare.

Thomas stood beside me, drying, methodical as always. Olive was on his other side, shoulder brushing his arm as she took the dishes from him and put them away. The three of us moved easily together, a quiet rhythm that looked deceptively normal. Domestic, even, if you ignored the compound gates, the armed patrols, and the fact that not much around us was ours.

Bodhi was still seated at the table beside Stella’s highchair, entertaining her with the miniature baby dolls he’d found in the toy basket in her room. Since dinner, he’d cleared the table, rinsed the dishes, and taken out the trash. He wasn’t required to leave, but he wasn’t supposed to stay. So, he earned the space he occupied, reducing friction where he could, absorbing small burdens, becoming someone easier to keep than to send away, especially when Olive relaxed the moment he was near.

“So,” he said, rocking his chair backward just enough to make me nervous. “How do you think it’s going to go? With the family, I mean.”

Thomas didn’t look up from the dish towel, a stubborn expression on his face.

“Just answer him,” I prodded. “He needs to know what to expect.”

Thomas sighed. “The honest answer? Expect volatility. That’s the Maddox baseline on a normal day, and what we did could take it up ten notches.”

Olive’s hands paused over the stack of silverware. Her shoulders tensed, then settled. She exhaled slowly through her nose, the way I’d seen her do when guilt threatened to tip into panic.

I turned slightly, resting my hip against the counter. “We’re hoping it won’t be,” I added. “We’re hoping with Marcel’s threat of removal they’ll be on their best behavior, but it’s always smart to be prepared, if anything so you stay out of the way. Thomas’s brothers are trained fighters. If something does happen, don’t try to intervene.”

Bodhi nodded, accepting the warning without flinching. He was good at absorbing hard truths without dramatics. It was one of the things that made him dangerous and dependable in equal measure.

“It’s not your fault,” Olive said, her voice heavy with sadness and maybe even a bit of frustration. “If I can understand it, they can. I mean, they should. I hope they do.”

I reached over to rub her arm, pressing my lips into a thin line.