“You can’t,” Lucas said.
Emily bit her lip.
“You’ll have a good place at the main house. A room you’ll share with a nice girl. Toys. Clothes. Everything you need. If anybody tries to be mean to you, tell them you belong to Lucas. Everyone is afraid of me. Nobody will harm you.”
“No,” Emily said.
Lucas stopped eating. Karina tensed.
“Are you telling me no?” Lucas asked. His voice was calm.
Emily raised her chin with all of the defiance a six-year-old could muster. “I’m tired and I’m scared, and I’m not going. I’m staying with my mom. Are you going to yell at me?”
“No,” Lucas said. “I don’t need to.”
“You’re not my dad. My dad left.”
Lucas glanced at Karina.
“I’m a widow,” she said quietly.
“I’m not your father, but I’m in charge,” Lucas said. “You will obey me anyway.”
“Why?” Emily asked.
Lucas leaned forward and stared at Emily. “Because I am big, strong, and scary. And you are very small.”
“You’re not nice.” Emily held his gaze, but Karina could tell it wasn’t out of courage. Emily had simply frozen like a baby rabbit looking into the eyes of a wolf.
“It’s not a nice world and I can’t always be nice,” Lucas said. “But I will try and I won’t be mean to you without a reason.”
Karina put her hand on his forearm, trying to tear his attention away from Emily. It worked; he looked at her.
“Please.” It took all of her will to keep the tremble out of her voice. “Please let her stay.”
“I want to stay,” Emily said. “I’ll be good. I’ll do all my chores.”
“I’ll think about it,” Lucas said.
CHAPTER 4
A half hour later, breakfast was finished. The men rose one by one, rinsed their plates, and loaded the dishes and silverware into the dishwasher with surprising efficiency. Karina put the last of the food away. Henry had stepped out, but Daniel remained in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, watching her. Lucas loomed by the door, watching Daniel.
“Can I go outside?” Emily asked.
Karina paused. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Why not?” Daniel arched an eyebrow.
“Because there are scary birds out there.”
“There are scary birds? What kind of scary birds?”
“It’s safe,” Lucas said. “The net keeps everything out.”
Karina remembered the bird’s body hitting the invisible fence. “What if she walks into this net?”
“She’d have to walk a mile and a half down the hill before she reached it,” Lucas said.
“I want to see the birds,” Emily said. “Please?”
It would get them out of the house, away from the men and out into the open. She could get a better look around. Maybe she would see a road, or a house, some avenue of escape. Karina wiped her hands with a towel and hung it on the back of the chair. “Okay. But we’re going to stay by the house.”
“I’ll come with you,” Lucas said.
All she wanted was the illusion of being alone with her daughter. He wouldn’t let her have it. Karina clenched her teeth.
“That’s right,” Daniel said. “Bite your tongue. It will come in handy.”
Lucas gave him a flat stare. For a moment they stood still, then Daniel rolled his eyes and casually wandered out of the kitchen into the side hallway. Lucas moved in the opposite direction, through the doorway. Karina took Emily by the hand. “Come on, baby.”
The hallway cut through the house, straight to the door. They passed rooms: a library filled with books from floor to ceiling on the right, a large room with a giant flat-screen TV on the left, and then Lucas opened the door and they stepped on the porch into the sunlight. The yard was grass, small scrawny oaks and brush flanking it on both sides. A path led down the hill into the distance. To the left a huge oak out of sync with the rest of the scrub forest and probably planted, spread its branches.
A shaggy brown dog stepped out from behind the oak. As tall as a Great Dane, it trotted forward on massive legs, its long tail held straight behind it. There was something odd in the way it walked, waddling slightly, more like a bear than a dog.
Karina stepped between Emily and the beast.
The animal stopped. Large brown eyes stared at them from a massive head crowned with round ears.
“Don’t worry, he’s tame,” Lucas said behind her.
The meld of dog and bear peered at Lucas and let out a short snort.
“He doesn’t like it when I phase into my attack variant,” Lucas said. “It weirds him out for a couple of days. Cedric, don’t be a dick. Let the kid pet you.”
Another snort. She couldn’t really blame the dog. Considering how Lucas looked in his “attack variant” it was a wonder the dog stuck around at all.
Cedric pondered them for a long moment and waddled over. Emily stretched out her hand. Karina’s insides clenched into a tight knot.
Cedric nudged Emily’s hand with his nose, snorted again, and bumped the bulge in the front pocket of her hoodie.
“What do you have in your pocket?” Karina asked.
Emily dug into her pocket and pulled out a half-eaten apple.
Not again. Karina kept her voice gentle. “Emily, you know you’re not supposed to have that . . .”
Cedric sniffed at the apple. His mouth gaped open, revealing huge teeth.
“He won’t hurt her,” Lucas said with absolute certainty in his voice.
Emily held the apple out. Very carefully, almost gently, Cedric swiped it off her hand, sat on his behind, and raised the fruit to his mouth, holding it with long, dark claws. The black nose sniffed the apple, the jaws opened and closed, and the beast bit a small chunk from the fruit and chewed in obvious pleasure.
“He likes it!” Emily announced and jumped down off the steps into the yard. “Come on, Cedric!”
“Where are you going?” Karina took a step to follow.
“Just to the tree.”
The oak was barely fifty feet away. Karina bit her lip. Her instincts told her to clutch her child and not let go, but Emily needed to feel normal. She needed to play. Her daughter didn’t understand how precarious their situation was, she had no idea how vulnerable they were, and Karina had to keep it that way.
Emily was looking at her. “Can I go?”
“Yes. You can go.”
Emily headed toward the tree. Cedric finished his apple in a hurried gulp, rolled to his paws, and followed her to the tree.
Lucas leaned on a porch post next to Karina. She had expected him to somehow shrink in daylight, as if he were some sort of evil creature of the night whose power faded with the sun, but he remained just as big and menacing. If anything, the sun made it worse—she could see every detail of his severe face. Everything about him, the way he leaned against the rail, the way muscle bulged on his arms and chest, the way he surveyed the yard, inspecting his territory, communicated predator.
Lucas raised his face to the sun, closed his eyes, and smiled. The smile lasted only a moment, gone like a
