“You should have stayed down,” he whispered when the guards turned him away.
For a moment, old fear gripped me. Then another memory surfaced. A message from a neighbor who had risked everything to save us.
Finish it.
Walking out of the courthouse, Evan took my hand. “Are we safe now” he asked.
I knelt beside him. “We are safer than we have ever been.”
Not entirely safe. Not yet. Some wounds take longer to fade than bruises or toxins. But we were stepping into a future Julian would never control again. And that alone was a kind of freedom.
