Page 22 of Wraith’s Promise

"About you earning this. Time with her. Time to just... breathe."

I don't know what to say to that. Don't know how to explain that breathing feels impossible most days, that the constant planning and calculating and staying three steps ahead is the only thing that keeps me from drowning in the weight of single parenthood and club wars.

"What do you want to do?" Quinn asks, and it takes me a second to realize she's asking Mariah, not me.

"Cookies!" Mariah announces immediately, like she's been waiting for someone to ask. "You said we could make cookies."

Quinn smiles. "I did say that. You want to help?"

"Yes!" Mariah abandons her drawing immediately and scrambles out of her chair.

"Alright then. Let's see what your kitchen has to work with." Quinn stands, sets the ice pack aside, and starts opening cabinets like she already knows where everything is.

Which she doesn't, obviously, but she moves through the space with confidence that makes it look like she does.

I should help. Should participate in this domestic moment. Instead, I find myself leaning against the counter watching them, watching Quinn pull out flour and sugar while Mariah bounces excitedly beside her, watching them work together like they've been doing this for years instead of hours.

"You just gonna stand there or you gonna help?" Quinn asks without looking at me, but there's amusement in her voice.

"I'm supervising."

"Supervision is very important," Mariah agrees seriously. "You have to make sure we don't mess up."

"I'm sure you won't mess up," I say, moving to join them anyway because standing on the sidelines watching my life happen feels wrong somehow.

Quinn hands me a mixing bowl. "You're on egg duty. Mariah, you want to measure the flour?"

"I can do it!" She takes the measuring cup Quinn offers with both hands.

We work together in the kitchen that suddenly feels too small and exactly the right size all at once. Mariah measures flour with intense concentration, getting half of it in the bowl and half on the counter. Quinn cracks eggs with one hand, a skill that makes Mariah gasp in admiration, and I mix everything together while trying not to think about how natural this feels, how right.

How much I want it to be real.

Quinn catches me staring again and raises an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing. Just..." I gesture vaguely at the scene. "This is nice."

"It is nice." She says it simply, like it's just a fact, like there's nothing complicated about a single dad, his daughter and the woman he hired yesterday making cookies together after fighting off five Vipers.

Maybe there isn't. Maybe I'm the one making it complicated by overthinking everything, by trying to plan three steps ahead when sometimes you just need to be present in the moment you're in.

Mariah steals a fingerful of cookie dough and grins at me, chocolate chips smeared on her chin, completely unrepentant.

"I saw that," I tell her.

"It's for quality control," she says, parroting something she must've heard on a cooking show.

"Can't argue with quality control," Quinn chuckles and says, swiping her own fingerful of dough and popping it in her mouth.

I should probably enforce the rule about not eating raw dough. Should be the responsible parent who makes sure everything gets baked properly. Instead, I reach into the bowl myself, taste the sweet dough, and share a grin with both of them.

For just this moment, there's no war. No Vipers regrouping and planning retaliation. No next threat to calculate or contingency to map out.

There's just this: flour on the counter, chocolate on my daughter's chin, Quinn's laugh still echoing in my kitchen, and the fragile peace of knowing everyone I care about is safe and happy.

"Daddy?" Mariah tugs on my shirt. "Can Quinn stay forever?"

"We'll see, baby girl," I say, because it's the only answer I can give right now that's honest. "We'll see."