“No, I can’t, Malia!”
She jerks up as I raise my voice in front of her. I’ve never done it before, because I never had to, but if she really believes what she’s saying, I’ll have to rectify.
“I can’t do whatever the hell I want, and I won’t,” I tell her, raising my finger in a warning. “That’s exactly why I’m admitting to a mistake here. It was a moment of weakness on my part. She wasn’t supposed to hear it just yet, and I know it fucking triggered something within her, but I can’t quite say what. And that’s not a good thing. We can’t let things like that slip.”
“We?” she barks at me. “I didn’t do anything. You fucked up!”
She’s blinking suspiciously fast as she averts her eyes from me, lowering her head for a moment before she looks back up, still flickering, still looking weirdly guilty.
She’s lying. And she’s really bad at it.
But what is she lying about? Or is this just about the fact that she’s spoken to Petal at all—something I explicitly forbid her to do?
“Maybe we should put an end to this,” she says now, obviously trying to divert my attention. “We went too far. It’s obviously too much—even for you.”
She meets my gaze, silently asking for approval. But I shake my head.
“No, we knew this would be hard,” I insist. “On all of us.”
“Fine,” Malia agrees, rolling her eyes. “But you better be ready for this, because I have something to tell you that won’t make this any easier.”