Page 29 of Knife Thrower

“Alright. Game time.”

The strongman steps up to the center table and unveils five watermelons. He drew faces on them with a black marker. Angry, chaotic, wailing baby faces.

“Diaper race,” Jonah rumbles, pulling a stack of cloth squares and safety pins from a canvas bag. “You have sixty seconds. If you drop the baby, you are disqualified from the role of uncle.”

Logan crosses his arms, a silver lighter spinning over his knuckles. “It’s a watermelon, Jo.”

“It’s your child, Logan. Respect the miracle of life.”

“I’ll take a hundred bucks on Silas,” Jules calls out, leaning against Elias’s side. “The man possesses terrifying manual dexterity.”

Elias pulls a silver money clip from his waistcoat. “Two hundred on Teddy. He handles explosives. A safety pin shouldn’t challenge him.”

Logan, Silas, Teddy, Deke, and Elias line up at the table. Jonah hands out the blindfolds.

The whistle blows. Pure, unadulterated carnage breaks loose.

Logan abandons the safety pins entirely, pulling a roll of silver duct tape from his back pocket and aggressively mummifying his watermelon. When he’s done, he takes off his blindfold and observes it with maniacal glee. Silas works with terrifying, surgical precision, his hands moving in a blur of practiced magic tricks. Teddy fumbles the cloth, his elbow knocking his watermelon off the edge of the wood.

The fruit hits the dirt and shatters, red chunks exploding across Teddy’s boots.

“Teddy murdered his child!” Logan screams, pointing a fire-scarred finger at the mess.

“It was a structural failure of the rind!” Teddy argues, ripping his blindfold off and wiping watermelon juice from his chin. “The table leans to the left!”

Silas pulls his blindfold down, presenting a perfectly diapered melon. “Speed and control, Agent Coleman. You lack both.”

Nova cackles from her makeshift throne of wooden crates and velvet cushions. She holds her swollen belly, her wild auburn hair shaking around her shoulders as she gasps for air.

I look past the flying fruit and the shouting men, my gaze snapping right back to Sloane.

She’s laughing.

An actual, full-chested laugh that knocks the breath straight out of my lungs. Her icy blue eyes crinkle at the corners, the guarded, defensive posture melting away entirely. The sight of it strikes me directly in the center of the chest. She belongs here. Among the chaos and the monsters.

The games eventually devolve into a chaotic gift-opening session.

Silas and Teddy flank Nova like a pair of fiercely protective guard dogs, pulling wrapping paper off boxes while she directs traffic.

Logan hands over a tiny, fire-retardant leather jacket.

“For when he wants to eat fire,” the pyromaniac explains, completely serious.

“He is absolutely never eating fire,” Nova wheezes, holding the jacket up by the sleeves.

Marek steps out of the shadows, offering a deck of tarot cards with edges gilded in silver. “Start them young. The veil is thin.”

Deke shoves a wrapped bundle into Silas’s hands. The illusionist tears the paper back, revealing a miniature, custom-forged meat cleaver with a polished wooden handle.

“When he’s old enough to trim a brisket,” the cook grunts, crossing his massive arms over his stained apron.

“Deke, this is a deadly weapon,” Teddy points out, staring at the sharp steel.

“It builds character.”

Wren steps forward next, gifting a beautiful, hand-knit blanket in deep, earthy greens. Then I place a cardboard box onto Nova’s lap. She rips the top open, pulling out a set of soft, rounded wooden throwing blocks.

“Hand-eye coordination,” I announce, leaning against the wooden support beam. “Uncle Cole’s throwing academy opens at age three. We start with wood, we move to dull steel by kindergarten.”