Mira walked too fast when she was scared.
Kane had learned that before he learned how to properly tie his shoes.
She didn’t run. Running looked guilty. Running made adults look up from windows and porches and passing cars. Running made people ask questions. Mira knew that. Their mother had made sure both of them knew that.
So Mira walked.
Quick little steps down the sidewalk, one hand curled tight around the strap of her backpack, auburn hair slipping out of its braid in soft, messy pieces. Her mouth was pressed into a thin line, and her eyes kept flicking ahead, past the yards and mailboxes and afternoon shadows stretching long across the pavement.
Kane stayed beside her.
Close enough that their sleeves brushed.
Not close enough to make her feel watched.
“Mira,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
The neighborhood looked normal around them, which Kane hated. Sprinklers ticked over trimmed lawns. Someone’s dog barked from behind a fence. A woman in a yellow sweater carried groceries from her car like nothing terrible had ever happened in any house on that street.
Kane looked at Mira again.
Her fingers had gone white around her backpack strap.
“What did you do?” he asked quietly.
Mira’s eyes snapped to his.
Wet already.
Not crying.
Never crying outside.
But close.
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I did something bad.”
Kane didn’t answer right away.
Because in their house, bad did not mean what it meant in other houses.
Bad could be a broken glass. Bad could be muddy shoes. Bad could be looking at their father too long or not looking quickly enough. Bad could be breathing too loudly while he counted money at the kitchen table.
Bad was whatever he noticed.
“Tell me,” Kane said.
Mira’s steps quickened.
He kept up.
For a few seconds, only their shoes scraped against the sidewalk. Then Mira whispered, “I took money.”
Kane stopped.
Mira took two more steps before realizing he wasn’t beside her. She turned around, face pale.
“Not a lot,” she said quickly. “Just three dollars.”
Kane stared at her.
Three dollars.
Three dollars was nothing.
Three dollars was everything.
“Why?” he asked.
Mira’s chin trembled once before she locked it still. “I was hungry.”
Something hot and helpless twisted in Kane’s chest.
He looked down the street toward their house, still hidden around the corner.
“Did you put the wallet back?”
Mira nodded fast. Too fast.
Kane’s stomach dropped.
“Mira.”
Her eyes filled further. “I forgot to fold it.”
The world went quiet in the worst way.
Kane could still hear the sprinklers and the dog and a car passing somewhere behind them, but all of it seemed far away now, pressed behind glass.
Their father folded his wallet a certain way.
Bills in order. Corners even. Leather closed flat, edge aligned with the scratch on the kitchen table when he set it down. He noticed if things moved. He noticed if drawers sat a fraction open. He noticed if footprints on the rug pointed the wrong direction.
He would notice.
If he hadn’t already.
Mira’s voice came small. “I tried to fix it.”
Kane started walking again. Faster now.
“Come on.”
Mira hurried beside him. “Maybe he didn’t see.”
Kane didn’t say anything.
She knew.
They both knew.
The corner came too quickly.
Their house appeared at the end of the block, pale and neat and awful beneath the lowering sun. The porch swing moved gently in the breeze. The curtains were drawn in the front windows. Their father’s car sat in the driveway.
Mira made a tiny sound beside him.
Kane reached over and took her hand.
This time, he didn’t care if it looked strange.
Her fingers gripped his like she was falling.
“I’ll say I did it,” he whispered.
Mira shook her head hard. “No.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll know.”
Kane looked at the house.
The front door was closed.
Too closed.
Like it was waiting.
“Then I’ll make him believe me.”
Mira looked at him, and for one second she was not moving fast anymore. She was just standing there on the sidewalk, small and terrified, her hand hot in his.
“Kane,” she whispered.
He squeezed her fingers once.
“Don’t cry.”
She swallowed immediately.
The tears stayed where they were.
Trained back.
Hidden.
Kane hated that she could do it so well.
They crossed the yard together.
Every step toward the porch felt louder than it should have. Wood creaked beneath their shoes. The swing shifted lightly beside them. Somewhere inside the house, something thudded once.
Mira flinched.
Kane moved in front of her before he opened the door.
The house smelled like tobacco, floor polish, and dinner that had been cooked too long.
And on the kitchen table, exactly where their father always left it, sat the wallet.
Open.
Wrong.
Waiting.
Kane stopped so abruptly that Mira bumped into his back.
Neither of them spoke.
The house seemed to listen for them.
That was what it always felt like when their father was angry—not loud at first, not moving, not throwing anything yet. Just the whole house turning its face toward them, holding still with a kind of cruel patience. The clock above the stove ticked. Somewhere in the walls, the pipes clicked. A fly tapped once against the kitchen window and then stopped, as if even it knew better.
Mira’s fingers tightened around Kane’s hand.
He looked at the wallet.
The bills were still inside, but not the way they should have been. The edges were uneven. One corner stuck up higher than the others. The leather flap had fallen open toward the wrong side of the table.
It looked small.
Stupid.
Like nothing.
Kane hated it so much his teeth hurt.
“Go upstairs,” he whispered.
Mira shook her head against his shoulder. He could feel the movement more than see it.
“Mira.”
“He’ll hear.”
She was right.
Of course she was right.
Their father heard everything when he wanted to. He heard drawers close too softly. He heard doors left open by inches. He heard lies before they were spoken and decided they were lies even when they weren’t.
Kane let go of Mira’s hand and stepped farther into the kitchen.
The floorboards creaked.
The sound was tiny.
It felt like a confession.
“Dad?” Kane called.
No answer.
Mira stood frozen in the doorway, backpack still hanging from one shoulder, her face gone so pale her freckles stood out across her nose. Her eyes were fixed on the wallet, not the hallway. Kane wanted to move her behind him again, wanted to hide her in the cupboard or under the stairs or inside his own ribs if that would work.
Instead, he picked up the wallet.
Mira inhaled sharply.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Kane ignored her.
His hands were steady because he made them steady. He closed the bills together, tried to smooth the uneven edges, tried to fold the leather back the way their father liked it.
The scratch on the table was just beneath it.
A thin white line in the wood.
He placed the wallet over the scratch and lined up the edge.
Almost right.
Almost.
Then a voice behind them said, “Don’t touch it.”
Mira made a sound so small it barely existed.
Kane turned.
Their father stood in the entrance to the hall.
He was still in his work shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, blond hair pushed back from his forehead like he had been running his hands through it. His face was calm.
That was worse.
He looked at Kane first.
Then at Mira.
Then at the wallet beneath Kane’s hand.
“I said,” he repeated, voice low, “don’t touch it.”
Kane pulled his hand back.
Slowly.
Their father stepped into the kitchen.
He did not rush. He never rushed when he wanted them scared. He walked to the table, picked up the wallet, opened it, and looked inside as though he hadn’t already counted the money. As though this was an investigation and not a verdict he had delivered before they even walked through the door.
“Three dollars,” he said.
Mira’s breathing changed.
Kane heard it immediately.
Their father looked up.
Not at him.
At Mira.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
Kane moved before he could stop himself.
One step.
Just enough to stand between them.
“I took it,” he said.
Mira’s eyes snapped to him.
Their father stared at Kane for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
It wasn’t happy.
It wasn’t even amused.
It was the kind of smile adults used when a child had disappointed them in a way they had expected all along.
“No, you didn’t.”
Kane lifted his chin. “Yes, I did.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
Their father tossed the wallet onto the table.
It landed with a flat slap that made Mira flinch again.
“You’re better at lying than she is,” he said. “But not that much better.”
Kane felt Mira behind him, small and shaking and trying not to make a sound.
“I was hungry,” he said.
Their father’s eyes sharpened.
“Were you?”
Kane nodded.
Their father stepped closer.
Kane forced himself not to move back.
“Then tell me what you bought.”
Kane’s mind went blank.
Only for a second.
But a second was enough.
Their father saw it.
Mira whispered, “A sandwich.”
The room died around the word.
Kane closed his eyes.
No.
No, no, no.
Their father looked past him.
“What was that?”
Mira’s voice trembled. “He bought a sandwich.”
Their father tilted his head.
Kane knew that tilt.
It meant the game had changed and none of the rules were in their favor.
“So you knew about it,” their father said.
Mira’s lips parted.
Kane stepped back into his father’s line of sight. “Leave her alone.”
The words left his mouth before he knew whether he was brave enough to survive them.
Their father looked down at him.
For a second, Kane thought he might hit him.
Part of him wanted that.
Not because it wouldn’t hurt.
Because it would be him instead.
But their father only reached out, placed one heavy hand against Kane’s chest, and shoved.
Kane stumbled backward into the chair by the table. His hip struck the edge hard enough to send pain bursting down his leg, but he grabbed the chair and stayed upright.
Their father moved past him.
Mira backed into the doorframe.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m sorry, I was hungry, I’ll put it back, I’ll—”
“Quiet.”
Her mouth shut.
Immediately.
Kane lunged forward.
Their father caught him by the front of his shirt without even looking and shoved him back harder this time. Kane hit the cabinet, breath knocking out of him.
“Stay there,” his father said.
Kane gasped for air.
Mira was crying now.
Silently.
Tears sliding down her face without a sound, because she knew better, because both of them knew better, because somehow silence had become the last thing they still had control over.
Their father crouched in front of her.
That was worse than him standing.
It made his voice quieter.
Closer.
“Look at me.”
Mira did.
Her whole body shook.
“Did you steal from me?”
She swallowed.
Kane tried to move again, but his father shot one hand out toward him without looking.
A warning.
Mira’s eyes flicked once to Kane.
Then back.
She whispered, “Yes.”
Their father smiled again.
Softly this time.
Almost kindly.
“Good,” he said. “At least you can still tell the truth when you’re scared enough.”
Then he stood.
Mira looked smaller beneath him than Kane had ever seen her.
Their father rolled his sleeves higher with slow, neat movements.
Kane’s stomach turned cold.
“Dad,” he said.
Their father didn’t look at him.
“Go to your room.”
“No.”
Now he looked.
And Kane knew, the second those dark eyes landed on him, that the word had cost more than he had.
“What did you say?”
Kane’s hands curled into fists at his sides.
He was shaking too.
He hated that.
“I said no.”
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then their father crossed the kitchen in two strides and grabbed him.
Kane barely had time to brace before he was thrown against the wall near the pantry, hard enough to make the picture frame beside him jump crooked on its nail. His shoulder burst with pain. His knees almost buckled.
Mira cried out.
Not loud.
But enough.
Their father turned back toward her.
And Kane, still trying to get air back into his lungs, understood with sudden, helpless clarity that he had not saved her at all.
He had only made him angrier.
Kane knew it the second their father turned back toward Mira.
There was silence before it happened. A terrible one. Not empty, not peaceful, but packed full of things Kane did not have names for yet. The kitchen seemed to shrink around them, every familiar object becoming suddenly sharp and wrong—the chair he had bumped into, the open wallet on the table, the crooked frame beside the pantry, the clock ticking above the stove as if time had not just become something cruel.
Mira stood in the doorway with her back pressed against the frame.
She looked so small.
That was what Kane remembered first.
Not the blood later. Not the sound. Not even the way their father’s hands moved.
Just how small she looked beneath him.
“Daddy, please—”
“Don’t call me that.”
The sentence cut through the room with a coldness worse than shouting.
Mira went still.
Kane did too.
Their father seemed to realize what he had said only after it left him. For one second, his face shifted—some strange flash of disgust, not at himself, but at them. At her. At whatever secret had slipped too close to the surface.
Then the anger covered it again.
“You don’t get to cry after stealing from me,” he said.
Mira’s mouth trembled.
No words came out.
Kane didn’t understand the sentence yet.
Not all the way.
But something about it lodged deep inside him, sharp and cold.
Don’t call me that.
Their father grabbed Mira by the arm and shook her once, hard enough that her head snapped forward.
“You hear me?”
“Yes,” she choked out.
“Say it.”
“I hear you.”
“No.” His hand tightened. “Say what you are.”
Kane’s stomach dropped.
Mira squeezed her eyes shut.
“Say it,” he ordered.
Her voice came out so small Kane barely heard it.
“A thief.”
“Louder.”
“A thief.”
Their father’s face twisted. “And?”
Mira shook her head.
“And?” he repeated.
Kane ran at him.
He didn’t get far.
Their father turned and caught him by the throat of his shirt, driving him back against the kitchen table so hard the wallet jumped. Pain tore through Kane’s lower back, but he grabbed their father’s wrist with both hands, digging his nails in.
“Leave her alone!”
Their father leaned close, breath hot and bitter. “You don’t give orders in my house.”
“She was hungry!”
For a second, something almost human flickered through their father’s eyes.
Almost.
It was gone before Kane could decide what it had been.
“Then she should have asked.”
“She’s scared of you!”
Their father’s hand tightened in Kane’s shirt.
Kane knew he had said the wrong thing.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it was.
Their father shoved him aside, and Kane hit the floor hard enough for the breath to burst out of him in a thin, ugly sound. For a second, he could not get his body to work. His ribs hurt. His back hurt. His hands slipped against the floor as he tried to push himself up.
Mira had not moved.
Their father went back to her.
And what happened next became broken pieces Kane would carry for the rest of his life.
Their father’s hand around Mira’s arm.
Mira whispering that she was sorry.
The kitchen chair scraping sideways when she stumbled.
Kane trying to stand and falling once because his knee had struck the cabinet wrong.
Their father saying, “Look at me.”
Mira looking.
Always looking when she was told to.
The first hit sounded smaller than Kane expected.
That was the awful thing.
He had thought violence would sound big enough to match what it did. He had thought there would be some kind of thunder in it, some warning, some sound that told the world to stop and pay attention.
There wasn’t.
There was only Mira’s breath catching.
Their father’s voice.
The clock.
The wallet sitting open on the table.
Kane got to his feet and threw himself at their father again, but he was too small and their father barely had to look to shove him away. This time Kane hit the counter. A glass tipped beside the sink and shattered in the basin, bright and sharp, and Mira flinched like the sound had struck her too.
“Stop,” Kane gasped. “Stop it!”
Their father didn’t.
Mira cried then.
Not beautifully. Not quietly. Not the way their mother taught her to cry when crying could be useful.
She cried like a child.
Like someone who had forgotten the rules because pain had eaten through them.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
Their father grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pushed her back against the wall.
Hard.
The frame beside the doorway knocked crooked.
Mira’s hands flew to his wrists.
Then his hand moved higher.
To her throat.
Kane stopped breathing.
For one horrible second, everything in the kitchen narrowed to that hand.
Mira’s eyes went wide.
“Dad—”
Their father’s face changed again.
That same disgust.
That same flash of something hidden and rotten and too old for Kane to understand.
“I told you,” he said, voice low. “Don’t call me that.”
Mira made a broken sound.
Kane screamed.
He did not remember deciding to move. One second he was frozen by the counter, and the next he was clawing at their father’s arm, kicking, hitting, trying to pry his fingers from Mira’s throat with hands too small to matter.
“Let go!” Kane shouted. “Let go! Let go!”
Their father shoved him off without effort.
Kane came back.
Again.
And again.
Each time, he was thrown farther.
Each time, Mira made less sound.
Her feet scraped weakly against the floor. Her hands fluttered at their father’s wrist. Her face had gone red, then pale in patches, her mouth opening around air that would not come.
Kane grabbed the wallet from the table and threw it at their father’s head.
It bounced off his shoulder.
Useless.
Everything Kane did was useless.
“She’s sorry!” he cried. “She said sorry!”
Their father did not look at him.
He was looking at Mira.
Not with rage anymore.
That was what scared Kane most.
The rage had burned down into something dull and heavy and empty.
Like this was not punishment now.
Like this was habit.
Mira’s hands slipped.
One fell to her side.
Kane heard himself make a sound he had never made before.
“Mira!”
Her eyes moved toward him.
Not fully.
Barely enough.
But they found him.
For one second, Kane thought she was trying to tell him something.
Then their father released her.
Mira dropped.
She hit the floor in a soft, wrong heap, hair falling across her face, one arm bent beneath her at an angle that made Kane’s stomach heave.
The room went silent.
Not quiet.
Silent.
The kind of silent that came after the world did something it could not take back.
Kane crawled to her because his legs didn’t work right anymore.
“Mira,” he whispered.
She didn’t move.
He pushed her hair back from her face with shaking fingers.
Her eyes were half-open.
Not seeing.
Kane touched her cheek.
Warm.
Still warm.
That meant something. It had to mean something.
“Mira,” he said again, louder now. “Get up.”
Nothing.
His hand moved to her shoulder, shaking her once.
“Get up. Mira, get up.”
Their father stood above them, breathing hard.
Kane looked up at him.
And whatever was on his face must have been awful, because their father’s expression shifted—not into regret, not into horror, but irritation.
Like Kane was making too much of a mess.
“Don’t look at me like that,” their father said.
Kane’s mouth opened.
No words came.
Their father wiped a hand over his face and looked down at Mira’s body.
Then he said, almost bored, “She’ll come back.”
Kane stared at him.
For a second, the words didn’t make sense. They entered the kitchen like anything else might have—like the ticking clock, like the smell of tobacco, like the glass still sitting broken in the sink—but they did not belong to anything Kane understood.
Mira was on the floor.
Mira was not moving.
Mira was not breathing.
People did not come back from that.
Children knew that.
Even little children knew that.
“What?” Kane whispered.
Their father sighed, like Kane had asked something irritating at the dinner table. “Don’t be stupid.”
Kane looked back down at Mira, his hands hovering over her because he didn’t know where to touch without hurting her more. Her head was tilted wrong. Her hair spread across the floor in a messy auburn fan. One tear had dried halfway down her cheek.
“She’s dead,” Kane said.
The word tore something open in him.
Their father stepped around them and picked up the wallet from the floor. He dusted it off against his pants, checked the bills again, and closed it properly this time.
Flat.
Neat.
Aligned.
“For now.”
Kane’s stomach turned.
“For now?” he repeated.
Their father looked at him then, and for the first time since Mira dropped, there was something like amusement in his face.
Not kind.
Never kind.
“You really don’t know anything.”
Kane moved closer to Mira, shielding her body with his own even though it no longer mattered.
“What did you do?”
Their father’s smile thinned. “What did I do?”
Kane’s hands curled into fists.
He wanted to hit him.
He wanted to break something.
He wanted to put Mira back inside her body by force if that was what it took.
Their father slid the wallet into his pocket and looked down at them both with a coldness that felt older than anger.
“Your mother did worse,” he said.
Kane went still.
The kitchen seemed to tilt around that sentence.
“What?”
“To her.” Their father nodded toward Mira. “To you. To herself, sometimes, when she wanted to prove a point.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Amato blood is dramatic like that.”
Kane didn’t understand.
He hated that he didn’t understand.
“She’s dead,” he said again, because it was the only truth he had.
Their father crouched down, not close enough for Kane to reach him, but close enough that his voice lowered into something almost conversational.
“Listen carefully, boy. She’ll come back. Might take a minute. Might take an hour. Depends how hard the body has to work.” His gaze flicked to Mira, then away, bored again. “Necks can be troublesome.”
Kane’s breath hitched so violently it hurt.
Their father noticed and rolled his eyes.
“Don’t start crying over it. You think this is the first time?”
Kane couldn’t answer.
His throat had closed.
Their father stood again, smoothing his shirt with both hands. “Your mother came back from worse.”
The words settled into Kane’s bones like ice water.
From the floor, Mira did not move.
Kane reached for her hand.
Her fingers were limp in his.
Still warm, but wrong.
Wrong in a way that made his mind want to crawl out of his skull.
“Fix her,” Kane whispered.
Their father laughed.
It was small.
Mean.
“That’s not how it works.”
“Fix her!”
This time, Kane shouted it.
The sound cracked through the kitchen, too big for his body, too broken to be brave.
Their father’s expression hardened.
“Watch your mouth.”
Kane didn’t care anymore.
Not about his mouth. Not about the wallet. Not about the rules.
“You killed her!”
Their father crossed the space between them fast enough that Kane flinched, but he didn’t move away from Mira. A hand cracked across his face, knocking him sideways. Pain burst hot along his cheek, and his ears rang.
Still, he crawled back to Mira.
Still, he took her hand again.
Their father stood over him.
“You’ll learn,” he said.
Kane looked up through blurred eyes.
“Learn what?”
Their father looked at Mira’s still body, then at the broken glass in the sink, then at the wallet in his pocket, like he was already bored of the whole evening.
“That dead doesn’t always mean finished.”
Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Kane heard him move down the hall.
He heard a cabinet open.
A bottle clink.
A chair scrape in the other room.
As if nothing had happened.
As if Mira wasn’t lying on the kitchen floor with her neck wrong and her eyes half-open.
Kane pressed both hands around hers.
“Mira,” he whispered.
Nothing.
He leaned closer, his forehead almost touching her shoulder.
“Please.”
Still nothing.
The clock ticked above the stove.
One second.
Another.
Another.
Kane held her hand and waited for the impossible because the alternative was a world where she stayed gone.
At first, nothing happened.
The clock kept ticking above the stove.
The house kept settling in small, ordinary sounds.
Their father kept drinking in the other room.
Kane sat on the kitchen floor with Mira’s hand trapped between both of his, holding so tightly he thought maybe he could anchor her there. Maybe if he didn’t let go, she wouldn’t drift too far. Maybe if he kept saying her name in his head, over and over and over, she would hear it wherever she had gone and turn back.
Mira.
Mira.
Mira.
Her fingers stayed limp.
Her skin was still warm, but not enough now. Not the right kind of warm. The kitchen light made her look pale and strange, like a doll someone had dropped and forgotten to pick up.
Kane wiped his nose with the back of his hand, angry when it came away wet.
He didn’t want to cry.
Crying didn’t fix anything.
Crying made adults smile like they had won.
But his body didn’t care what he wanted. His chest kept hitching. His throat kept closing. Every few breaths, a sound tried to crawl out of him, small and broken and humiliating.
He bent lower over Mira’s hand.
“Come back,” he whispered.
Nothing.
From the other room, their father called, bored, “Stop whining.”
Kane’s whole body went still.
He looked toward the doorway.
Then back at Mira.
Something inside him changed then.
Not loudly.
Not all at once.
It was more like a door closing somewhere very deep. A small, final sound only he could hear.
He would remember that too.
Not just Mira on the floor.
Not just their father’s hand.
That voice from the other room.
Bored.
Annoyed.
Alive.
Kane looked down at Mira’s face.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m not leaving.”
The words sounded too big for him, but he meant them anyway.
Minutes passed.
Or maybe longer.
Kane lost track. Time became the clock and his breathing and Mira’s hand in his. His cheek throbbed where their father had hit him. His back hurt from the table. His knees ached from the floor.
Then Mira’s fingers twitched.
Kane stopped breathing.
For one impossible second, he thought he had imagined it.
Then it happened again.
Small.
Weak.
Real.
“Mira?”
Her body jerked.
Not gently.
Not like waking from sleep.
It was ugly and sudden, her back arching off the floor, her mouth opening around a sound that was not quite a gasp and not quite a scream. Air tore into her like it hurt to come back. Her hand clamped around Kane’s fingers so hard pain shot through his knuckles.
He almost sobbed.
“Mira,” he choked. “Mira, it’s me.”
Her eyes flew open.
For a moment, she didn’t see him.
She stared past him, wild and terrified, sucking in broken breaths that rattled in her throat. One hand lifted toward her neck, trembling violently. When her fingers touched the bruised skin there, she made a thin little sound that split Kane straight through.
“It’s me,” he said again, leaning over her. “You’re back. You came back.”
Mira’s eyes found him.
Tears spilled immediately down her cheeks.
She tried to say his name.
Only air came out.
Kane shook his head fast. “Don’t talk. Don’t. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay.
Nothing was okay.
But she was looking at him.
She was breathing.
She was alive.
Kane gathered her carefully, awkwardly, pulling her into his lap because he didn’t know how else to keep her from breaking apart again. Mira clung to him with shaking hands, face pressed into his shirt, her whole body trembling like she had been left out in the cold too long.
He held her tighter.
Too tight, maybe.
He didn’t care.
From the other room, their father called, “See?”
Kane went still.
Mira flinched against him so hard her nails dug into his arm.
Their father’s chair scraped.
He did not come back into the kitchen.
He didn’t need to.
His voice carried anyway, flat and satisfied.
“Told you.”
Mira shook silently in Kane’s arms.
Kane stared at the doorway, and for the first time in his life, he did not feel only afraid when he thought of their father.
He felt something else.
Something colder.
Something with teeth.
Mira came back.
And Kane understood, with a horror too large for his small body, that in their house even death was not allowed to save her.