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No.

I’m not him anymore.

I’m not there anymore.

Not him. Not there. Not him. Not there.

Easier said than done.

I force my mind back to this moment. Again, easier said than done, but I finally dive headfirst into the box in my brain labeled Detached Analysis. Four years of university-level business management didn’t pound it into me, but after a few months of facing off with felons, it stuck. Right now, it’s my salvation.

“How can we be of service to you, Aliz?” It’s the safest alternative of all the demands hammering at my brain and the one that matters the most right now. “Your children were clearly rattled when we found them upstairs”—feels like the easiest descriptor, so I’m going with it—“and we assumed maybe—”

“They are not my children.”

And there’s my lesson for the day about assumptions. “All right. Do they have parents, then? Where are they? Were they hurt during the quake?” Or whatever the fuck it was. I scowl for a second, not certain how I feel about the alternative theories getting easier to accept by the second, before swinging my focus from Aliz to the twins. “Is that why they sent you to us?” I question, pointing a finger upward. “Are your parents lost? ¿Necesitas ayuda con tu familia?” When they keep staring as if I’ve asked them how to get to the fucking moon, I mentally dig in my heels. I’ve been a man-slut, a party god, an extreme-sports junkie, and an insane big spender, but I’ve never been a quitter. “¿Padre?” I prompt. “¿Madre?”

Zap.

I’ve sure as hell hit the button this time.

I’m just damn sure it’s not the right one.

The girls detonate into shrieks that are worse than their fits in the elevator. They grip each other as if they intend to fuse permanently. Even Lux’s attempt at comfort, struggling to encompass them both with his outstretched arms, doesn’t ding their grief. If anything, as our son tries to console them with the basic Spanish Emma and I have taught him, their laments grow louder—all triggered by one definite word.

“Madre!”

“Madre!”

“Madre!”

Every time one of them enunciates between their sobs, my gut twists tighter. When the torque is bad enough to match the torment of gazing at Aliz, I suck it up and fix my sights back on her again. “Holy shit,” I rumble. “Their mother…did they lose her in the quake?”

The woman’s bite of a laugh is nowhere near my top ten—twenty—anticipated reactions. “No. Though I am certain that is what they wish.”

And that one? Don’t look for it in the top fifty.

“Excuse the crap out of me?” Sometimes, Emma has the perfect words and matching inflection for a moment. But before Aliz can give her a reply, the girls cry out twice as loud. Their pleas are worse to endure, carrying the scratchy pain of pure desperation.

“Madre no! Madre no!” They keep up the synched screams, each spinning around—until I’m wearing one of them around a leg and Emma’s draped by the other. “Por favor, madre no more!”

That one word of an extension, provided by the little girl who turns her terrorized, tearstained face up at me, helps to clarify a shit ton. While the surge of their raw emotion in the air has made it impossible to stay totally inside the detachment box, I’m able to register that part loud and clear.

Madre no more.

And then to let in some of my ensuing fury because of it.

Just some.

If I crank back the hatch, I’ll let the entire storm fill up the cabin of the ship of my composure. The ship that has to stay afloat right now. The ship that’s already pitching hard on the waves of my comprehension.

“No more what?” I spit at Aliz. “Of their own mother?” Guided by raw impulse, I shield the back of Ira’s head with the wide spread of my hand. “Where the hell is this woman?”

“Not here,” Aliz answers. “At least not now. Thank God.”

“Then who the hell is she?” And does the heartless hag know that her own children are screaming and shivering and cowering at the simple mention of her?

Aliz jerks up one side of her mouth, channeling her mirthless chuckle into new form. “Reece Richards, savior of Los Angeles, leader of Team Bolt, the walking lightning strike…you know that you possess that answer already, yes?”