Kid

---

Growing up on the Flying K, Kid had always wondered where he belonged. What was his place in his family?

Sam was the eldest and sometimes the wisest. He was a rule follower and enforcer, if need be. Sam, as much as his father, raised him.

Micah always had a place with the animals. He played peacemaker as much as anything, when it came to his brothers, but he knew from day to day what he would be doing.

Jason? Kid spared a glance at his brother. Jason distanced himself from them all, and it had taken Kid years to learn why. They were all Kanes, and being a Kane meant something on the thousands of acres they called home for the Flying K and in the old town of Dorado.

It meant something in the new town, too. Yet, Kid never felt like he belonged. His curse—the ability to feel the people around him, to taste their upset, their fury, their passion, and worst of all, their disappointment—kept him trapped between being too intimately aware of them and unable to be close.

So much of what he accepted as his lot in life faded once he mastered an ability he’d had so long, he couldn’t imagine being without it. He didn’t remember being sick, or the Fever, which nearly took Jason and him as children.

Standing in snow up to his calves and staring out over a pasture breathing in the cold, Kid recognized the Flying K as home. He could feel the ranch and every soul living on it. He’d always been able to feel the ranch. The shaman who had come to save him and Jason had also tied them to the ranch in a way that bound them inextricably to their land. Jed Kane, his father, had always said that the Kanes and the Flying K were one and the same.

Until the last few years, his father hadn’t known how right he was.

“You sure you want to do this all the way out here?” Jason's voice was as chill as the air. Once upon a time, Kid assumed that meant he didn't give a damn. His icy manner and isolation were almost anathema to Kid, who felt everything. However, Jason’s gifts meant he heard what everyone was thinking, even the deep, dark thoughts one would never utter aloud.

Funny how wrong they could all be.

“I don't want to do it in the house,” Kid said blowing out a breath. The past wouldn’t leave him alone as it was. “Everybody's focused on the baby right now, and that's a good thing.” The arrival of young Quinton Kane filled his brother and sister-in-law with joy. Scarlet was safe and healthy. Noah would look after his sister and the new arrival, which allowed everyone to celebrate.

In the meanwhile, the time was ideal for him and Jason to test his theory about the boundary. The arrival of Jimmy and his shaman wife had triggered something, or maybe they’d simply revealed what had been there all along.

“Are we waiting on them, or are we just going to get started?” No judgments echoed in his brother's voice. Kid didn't need to hear the doubt to know Jason’s feelings in regard to ghosts. Spirits. These were fantastical things that didn’t belong in the hard life they both lived.

“I asked Buck to reach out to Blue, and I expect that she will be showing up here with Jimmy as well.” Jimmy's presence was necessary but Blue was his wife. Kid wouldn’t begrudge him the need to protect her. If Evelyn went to do something similar, Kid would be at her side. Buck was also a Shaman, but Kid only knew him as a dreamwalker. While Jason and Buck had their issues over the years, they’d also settled into a reasonable facsimile of friendship.

“Fair enough,” Jason said as he came to stand next to him. “You know this war means we’re going to have to leave the ranch.”

Yes, Kid did know. He'd known for years. He could make the argument that he felt that in his bones.

“You don't want to leave Olivia.” Not a question. Kid didn't want to leave Evelyn. There was no way in hell…

“No, I don't, but she wants me to go. Made me promise I wouldn’t stay just to protect her. How the hell do I justify leaving her?” There was an incomplete thought there.

“You're more worried about leaving her blind than you are about leaving her on the ranch.” Again, he didn’t need to be able to read his brother to know this. The simple truth was Jason had never loved anything or anyone the way he loved Olivia. The pure depth of his emotion for her had him shielding her mind from his own gift. A gift which turned Jason into a living weapon. Once he’d accepted both his feelings and her presence in his life, they’d melded somehow and Olivia could see.

“Yes.”

“Don’t,” Kid said, twisting to face his brother. They had their differences, and likely always would, but Jason needed to listen to him. “No one's going to hold it against you. I can leave Evelyn here, and I know… Even if I die, she’ll be fine. She’d grieve me, and probably be ready to spit fire, but in the long run she would be okay. I know our family will protect her and take care of her.”

Jason snorted. “Olivia said she’d be angry with me if I didn’t go.” Olivia Stark Kane was a tough woman. “She knows you’re all going to need me, and she knows I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened I could have prevented by being there.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to like it.” Kid shook his head and took a couple of steps to lean against the fence line.

“Can you recall the last time you saw this much snow?” Jason danced around the topic.

“You and I both know we’re not all coming back from this.” Whatever they faced up north, it was better to face it as far away from their loved ones and the innocents as they could.

“Agreed,” Jason said, the chill in his voice thawing. For the briefest of moments, impatience mingled with humor in his expression. “You’re not going to let it go, are you?”

“Hell no, because I know Sam and Micah will want to go.” Their elder brothers wouldn’t shy from the fight, no matter how the odds stacked against them.

“They can’t,” Jason swept the hat off his head, then raked fingers through his hair. He’d been letting it grow longer than his usual close shave. “Based on what MacPherson controlled when I last saw him, we’re going to need our most powerful.”

Which meant Scarlett. That was what Jason didn’t say aloud. Their sister-in-law’s firestarting ability made her a heavy hitter. She’d also just given birth. Sam wouldn’t likely forgive them for even discussing the concept.

“We’ll need Cody as well.” Jason ticked off the name.

Cody’s mate Mariska was also a wolf, but she was pregnant. How the hell could they ask Cody to leave his mate? Or Scarlett to leave her newborn?

“Taking Noah would be dangerous,” Jason continued. “Having a healer on our side might turn the tide.”

“With that thinking, we’ll need Delilah as well.” Kid shook his head. No one would like this plan. It required so many difficult choices.

“If we all go, if we all do this…”

Kid understood. If they were going to take out MacPherson once and for all, they couldn’t hold anyone in reserve.

“There is a chance we could gather others along the way, but it’s a limited opportunity and I don’t know how many we’ll find.” Jason had acquired information from the late Colonel Stanley. The Army man had a list of Fevered he’d curried favor or deceived into trusting him. They were his secret weapon, men and women he could use to win his wars. Fortunately, Stanley hadn’t liked to share info, so Jason was now the only one who knew where they all were.

“We don’t know what Wyatt brings, other than a level of danger.” It wasn’t a question, but Kid knew the elder Fevered better than most. “We don’t know what Quinn brings with her, either, except that she’s tied to the witches.”

“Everyone is here.” Not given to great insights, Kid straightened. “That’s the connection…since Scarlett and her brothers robbed that bank, they’ve all been coming here.”

“If you’re right about the barrier, they’ve been coming here since before then.”

Jason was right. They’d been coming since he and Jason were kids and…

A horse’s snort carried on the breeze. Though he’d felt their approach, Kid hadn’t realized how close Jimmy, Blue, and Buck were. Out of deference to the weather, Blue wore buckskin leggings and a heavier coat. The peace surrounding her eased through him, but he raised his guard.

She was Jimmy’s wife. While Kid trusted Jimmy, he still needed to guard himself. It was better for everyone.

“I thought we trusted them?” His brother’s dry comment pulled a reluctant smile from Kid.

“We do.” He blew out a breath. “We’re still doing it one step at a time.”

“Good.” The corner of Jason’s lips twitched into a smile. “Impulsive has its place.”

“Yeah, we’re doing it your way.” Though Kid didn’t tack on the be quiet, he didn’t have to. Jason’s faint snort carried more than a trace of humor and fraternal familiarity. “Don’t get used to it.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

It was Kid’s turn to laugh, and a muscle cramp in his back eased. They had one thing going for them MacPherson could never appreciate…they were brothers.

---

Buck

---

The icy chill of winter surrounded us everywhere. It wasn’t Buck’s first snow, nor Jimmy’s. They’d grown up on the mountain where the snow could pin them for months on end each year. Still, seeing it blanket the Flying K was a fresh experience. Buck kept his horse a few paces behind Jimmy and Blue. Though he welcomed his brother’s wife, her presence served as a challenge to him.

As if drawn by his thoughts, she glanced over a shoulder at him. Her dark eyes held no reproach. If anything, she’d been curious, though polite with her curiosity. Among his father’s people, one didn’t pry. He accepted she was Jimmy’s wife, and he even accepted she was a shaman of the blood—the blood.

Buck shook his head and let his horse fall back farther. His father kept so many secrets in his lifetime. Those secrets…

“My presence troubles you.” Blue appeared beside him, while Jimmy rode ahead. The use of their native language and the steadiness in her gaze required an answer from him.

“Little Mother…” The title sat uneasily on his tongue. “Forgive my rudeness.” Among the people, such behavior toward the average individual was frowned upon. To do so to a medicine man or woman could find one shunned. “I mean no disrespect.”

“Little Father, you owe me no apology.” The use of the title startled Buck and he reined in his horse. Blue matched him and turned her mare to face him. “You are new, but you’re not. You’re afraid, but you’re not. You’re worried, but you’re not.”

The language flowed so beautifully from her, holding not a single syllable of the hesitation which discolored her English. “You know me,” he said by response. “But you don’t.”

Blue laughed, it was a warm sound. “Truth. But we are both of the people and…”

“And of the blood. I know. You’ve known your whole life, right? I just found out.”

Sobering, the medicine woman regarded him sternly. “You cannot learn something that has always been. You may not have used the words, but you knew. You dreamwalk, yes?”

“But I thought that was because I was Fevered.” The word for Spirit Fever in their language also meant cursed. His father didn’t raise him to see it as a negative, however. “Father didn’t tell me otherwise until right before he passed to the next world. He wanted to protect me from our enemies. From someone who had tried to kill me before.” The reality was Buck had been a target from the day of his birth. Being of the blood made them the natural enemies of MacPherson—whatever the hell he was—and he’d killed Buck’s mother and most of their tribe when Buck was a child.

A memory he no longer had, outside of what Quanto had shared with him.

“It does not change your truth. You have always been who and what you are. Whether you call it Fevered or of the Blood, you are a dreamwalker. You are a medicine man. The spirits have blessed you and your line.”

Blowing out a breath, Buck considered whether he should say his next words for a split second then decided if they couldn’t be honest, there was no future. “I’ve spoken to a spirit that I can recall. I know the wind speaks to me sometimes, but that’s an instinct, not a real voice.”

“Maybe you aren’t listening here,” she said, curling her fingers into a fist and tapping it against her chest just above her heart. “Have you ever wondered why those who are cursed do not affect those they care about?”

It was true—Scarlett didn’t burn Sam and Delilah’s siren song didn’t captivate him any longer. One strange component of their gifts was their sheer power didn’t harm who they loved. “Yes, but I assumed it had to do with the true desire to not harm the one you love.”

“Yes, and because it comes from the spirit—the same place the curse is rooted. When you walk in a dream, how do you see the people in them? As who they are? Who they can be? Or what shines within them?” With a light hand, she gripped his arm. “The only mistake I see in you is the belief that you must be something else now.”

The contact ignited a spark within him, as though some sleeping part of himself roused. Blue was his sister, in more than just marriage. She was of the Blood, and her blood called to his as Wyatt’s would call to them both. The Fevered belonged to them all. It was their blood which created them in the first place. When Quanto told him the truth, Buck had begun to question everything. He and his siblings were bound by love and loyalty, and they’d never needed the connection wrought by blood.

He didn’t need it now.

“Thank you.” The gratitude flowed from him easily. “When Father told me I wasn’t Fevered, I felt betrayed, which didn’t make any damn sense then or now. He never stopped me from being who I was, he just didn’t give me a name for it.”

“Truth,” Blue said, releasing his arm and turning her horse toward the waiting Kane brothers and her husband. “Expectation and reality often seem distant cousins. In truth, they are merely different parts of the same buffalo.”

A snort eased out of him and Buck shook his head. “Should we survive all this, will you teach me?”

“I cannot teach what you already know, but I will walk the same path with you for a while.” It wasn’t a direct answer, but the same kind his father used to give him.

Vague, yet supportive in the same breath. “I am not certain of any other path except the one that protects my family.”

A family which included Blue.

“Then that is the path we’ll follow.” With that, she rode ahead and Buck tapped his heels to the horse’s sides to follow. The horse wasn’t thrilled with the snow, but at least the violent chill they’d experienced had diminished with the wind. The gray skies kept the sun away, but they were thinning.

“Thanks for coming,” Kid said as they reached the small gathering. His gaze went to Buck, then to Blue. “With everything going on, we need to confirm the situation rather than assume.”

“You wish to know about the spirit barrier,” Blue said, without hesitation. Her gaze rested on the Kane brothers even as she dismounted. Jimmy impressed Buck most of all. Instead of taking a step in front of her as though to shield her or pulling her into his side, he kept his gaze on the situation and didn’t usurp her authority.

“Yes.” Jason answered rather than Kid. From the first time Buck met him, Jason seemed too cold and too detached. When he objected to Buck and Delilah’s burgeoning relationship, Buck learned how formidable an opponent Jason Kane could be—and he’d been holding back then. “Something happened when you arrived. We want to know if you can do it again?”

Blue tilted her head, considering both Jason and Kid. “You wish to see the spirit again?”

“Can you summon…a spirit?” The discomfort in Kid’s voice wasn’t lost on Buck. Though Buck had grown up around the unusual and raised by his very spiritual father, he had his own reservations where the spirits were concerned. A wariness, and gut instinct which told him not to mess with them.

“I will not summon or force the one you wish to see,” Blue said, her English carefully articulated. The accent she gave to certain syllables seemed to give the words deeper meaning. “The spirits are always here and all around you. They are bound to this land and to you by blood—your blood and mine.”

After scrubbing a hand over his face, Kid frowned. “Is it possible for anyone to give a straight answer to a direct question?”

“Ask one.” Blue advised him, bluntly and Jimmy’s lips quirked. His expression didn’t have to change for Buck to read his amusement.

“Jimmy indicated you could communicate with spirits. The one who appeared when you crossed onto our land…we want you to call her again if you can.” Kid’s discomfort with the request made his wording awkward and finally he stripped off his hat.

“What my brother is struggling to ask is can you allow us to speak to or see our mother, if that is indeed the spirit you saw that evening?” Jason’s expression didn’t alter and his manner didn’t change, but Blue’s did.

Their mother. Buck wouldn’t mind seeing his mother again. He couldn’t quite picture her face anymore. Even if he tried to construct her image in the dreaming, it was always blurred around the edges as though time had eroded what his heart knew.

“Your mother.” Blue exhaled the words, then looked away from the brothers. “I didn’t realize…”

“She died birthing me,” Kid said quietly. “I’d never seen her before, save for the painting our father had done of her. If she’s here, if she’s been here this whole time, we want to know.”

“And if she’s trapped,” Jason added. “We want to free her.”

His statement seemed to catch Kid off guard, but it was a very Jason decision. He didn’t often wait for others to give him all the details. If their mother was bound, then she had to be released.

“I can make no promises…but I will do what I can.” Blue returned to her horse and mounted smoothly. “It will be easier at the water’s edge, where the boundary is strongest.”

That was all she had to say. Though Kid led the way, Buck waited a beat and met Jason’s gaze. When he raised his eyebrows, Buck concentrated. Are you sure about this?

No. The mental reply carried all the chill of his normal manner. I am only certain Kid needs to know.

Then I’ll have your back.

It didn’t require a response, and Jason didn’t offer one. Without another word, they both mounted and followed the others.

The wind picked up and whispered past Buck.

A fresh chill coiled along his spine. Every action they took seemed to be stampeding them in one direction.

If only he understood where—and what—waited for them on the other side.

---

Jason

---

They rode in silence to the western reaches. The streams came together among the rocks and spilled down into the creek which separated Dorado from Haven—the community located on Kane land, built just beyond the border of the ranch. Though the original Dorado had been several miles away, they’d chosen to rebuild far away from the scorched memories that remained.

Maybe they should do something with that land—a memorial to those who’d fallen. The thought settled into the back of Jason’s mind. He couldn’t act on it now, but once they’d resolved the issue with MacPherson…

Kid glanced at him sharply, but Jason shook his head. His brother had trouble reading his emotions so the sudden surge of hope must have caught him off guard. They could take time to explore the possibilities of the future after dealing with the problems of the present.

Though ice clung to the rocks in clumps and arches, the water continued to flow. The barrier was near, and though Jason couldn’t see it, to his mind’s eye the land beyond the water was flatter and featureless.

“Tell me what you experience with the boundary.” Though Blue commanded, an element of a question edged her words.

“I can feel everyone on the ranch,” Kid answered first. “If I think about them…say the new baby, I can tell you he is pissed because he’s hungry and uncomfortable. But if I think about Sam, all I feel is his pride, determination and love.” Though he’d tried to explain how he experienced things before, it never failed to amaze Jason how distinctly different his world was from that of his brother’s. “Jason’s less clear, but I can tell you Shane’s troubled by Sage’s rejection, and Sage is struggling with resentment and unhappiness…likely because Shane was gone and she was scared.”

Blue raised a hand, stifling Kid’s outpouring. “It magnifies your gift?”

“To the area encompassed by the ranch, yes.” Jason said before Kid could resume and get caught up in the emotional landscape. “Like Kid, it only requires me thinking of a person and my mind will hone in on their location. Similarly, when someone crosses onto our land, I know immediately. This, however, is recent.”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. It used to keep people out, now it tells us…only I think it tried to before, but it was too much for either one of us to handle on our own. Even Sam and Micah can feel it to some extent.” Kid raised an eyebrow at him questioningly. Did they share their concerns with her or not?

Revealing too much might be dangerous, but Jimmy and Buck were family, that made Blue family as well. They needed all the allies they could muster. “We believe that when Kid returned, whole and healthy with himself, and I’d settled into accepting my gift and revealing it to the family, and we managed to forgive each other—it completed something within the barrier and powered it more fully than it had been before.”

“It sang,” Kid said quietly. “Much as it did when you crossed over. The boundary welcomed me home. Where Micah and Sam might have headed in a specific direction where they were needed before, they know when they are needed. They know when someone doesn’t belong.”

“Yet,” Buck added to the conversation. “It reacted to all of you before. No Fevered could cross it without a Kane invitation.”

“About that,” Jimmy spoke for the first time, his attention riveting on Buck. “You’re not Fevered. Why couldn’t you cross it?”

The status of Fevered or of the blood added a new layer to the complication of their existence, but Jason didn’t doubt it had to do with self-reflection. If a body truly believed they couldn’t do something, they wouldn’t. Hadn’t he done the same with Olivia’s mind? Used his own gift to shield her so he couldn’t pry into her mind and keep her safe?

“I felt the stings and the prickles the same as you and Cody,” Buck said slowly, but even he seemed troubled by the question.

“If you did not think you could cross, if you believed it would repel you as it did your brothers, then the spirits would have listened to you.” Blue’s answer came out almost abstract as she stared over the water. What did she see? If he turned his mental attention in that direction, he saw emptiness and he didn’t find any minds near enough to their land to observe them as they stood on the snow lined stream. The farther out they’d ridden, the thinner the snow cover.

It could be further proof of a Fevered’s interference or simply the regions features that allowed it to rain at the main house and yet be bone dry in town. Jason shook off the distracting thought and focused.

“You’re saying I convinced myself the barrier would repel me and the spirits obliged?” Skepticism rifled Buck’s tone and he scowled.

“You are a shaman, and you can kindle power with your blood. Whether you recognized what you were or not, the spirits would have and you are Morning Star. These spirits were engaged by a Morning Star and then…” Blue paused, and shook her head slowly. “Grandfather has weaved the impossible.”

When she didn’t add anything more to the statement, it was Jimmy who nudged his hat back and grinned slowly. “Clearly not, or you wouldn’t be staring at it.”

The gentle humor in his manner pulled her attention and she shook her head. “True, but what I meant is that if I were to live to see a hundred winters, I do not think I could do what he has done here. The work is…perfect.” The description didn’t seem to be what she wanted, but she spread her hands. “It overlays everything, yet it flows along the water as though he began with those spirits…then he called the others into the dance. He used his blood to begin the dance, but it isn’t sealed by it, and—” Abruptly, she turned and faced Jason. “Would you cut yourself for me?”

A hundred questions seemed to crowd Kid’s expression, and Buck’s frown deepened, but Jason pulled a knife from the sheath on the side of his boot. He rarely wore a gun or relied on standard weapons. The knife was more for practicality on the ranch. Drawing the blade over his palm, he barely felt the sting in the cold. The temperature around him plummeted, and he leashed the ice in his veins.

The shaman wanted his blood? He turned the knife and passed it to her pommel first with his blood on the blade. It was more trust than he would show just anyone, but he relied on his brother’s instincts more than his own.

Kid didn’t react as though she would harm anyone.

Balancing the knife in one hand, she sliced it across her palm and blood arced away to splatter the mingled droplets against the white snow. The world hushed, as though it had sucked in a deep breath then light ribboned upward—a rainbow of color flowing from the water to shimmer in a curtain above the land. A woman appeared directly in front of Jason.

A woman he knew only from a painting and a half-formed memory he couldn’t put his finger on. He thought she might smell like lemons, and her skin would be warm and soft.

“Ma…?” Kid’s strangled question drew the kindness in the woman’s eyes as she glanced from Jason to Kid, then back again. When she stretched out a hand and brushed it against Jason’s cheek, the sensation shuddered through him—the kiss of spring, and the warmth of the kitchen in winter, coupled with a lightness that brought tears to his eyes.

The tangled wave of emotion smashed through every barrier Jason possessed even as the sun burned through the cloud cover, illuminating his mother. Staggered, he fought to keep his balanced even as Kid gripped his arm. The touch on his face gained substance and he stared into the intense blue eyes of the woman who gave birth to him.

“My beautiful boys,” she said, and the southern lilt to her words kindled another memory of a soft lullaby hummed as she carried him through the house. Disorienting to recall a moment when he rode her hip, his fingers sticky with some treat as she flowed as much as walked.

As if the song were a key, his mind raced along the path. His first steps. The booming laughter of his father. And the sudden shuttering as Kid cried for the first time. Inexplicable loss, then he was riding on Sam’s shoulders, or toddling along and holding Kid’s hand.

So many memories assaulted him all at once. Sam. Micah. Pa. Kid. Miss Annabeth. Cobb. The first time he rode a pony on his own. Fighting with Kid over possession of some odd wooden toy.

Then the world darkened, and a man’s face loomed in his. A distant part of his mind identified the dark stranger as Wyatt, only his eyes were both a painful blue, not mismatched. He coaxed them with treats—no, he coaxed Kid with a treat. Terror rippled through Jason, it was as though he walked with the man and watched after himself in the same moment.

No… He wanted to shout the word, but it wouldn’t leave his throat. He clambered over the fence even as the man hoisted Kid. They walked the length of fence line, leaving it behind for the shade of the trees.

Jason recognized the landscape. Cabins used to sit within those woods, a place for the men to sleep when they worked the far pastures, particularly in round up season.

His father burned them when he was a kid, but this was before then. The cabins were empty. It was the wrong season for anyone to be bunking. He and Kid used to sneak there to play, but they weren’t supposed to go that far. How many times had Sam or his father chastised him and Kid for not paying attention when they roamed?

Come back. Don’t… The man held out a canteen of water to Kid and told him to drink. Jason was thirsty too, but the man offered him a different container. Grasping the item, he’d turned it up to his lips and grimaced at the coppery flavor of the water. Tempted to spit it out, he’d frozen under the man’s gaze and then his limbs didn’t obey him as he drank more…and more…until it was empty.

The world darkened again as the man disappeared. His father thrashed him and Kid both for disappearing. For some reason, it was dark, and Sam stood there looking chagrinned. Why hadn’t they come when they were called?

Jason’s head hurt. The pain of the thudding in his brain drowned out the burn of the spanking.

Shh…it will be all right, my darling.

Fever rushed him. His limbs were too heavy, and he couldn’t swallow for the dryness in his throat. Dry, calloused hands held a damp cloth to his forehead and his father’s face swam before his eyes.

Blink.

The man with the blue eyes returned. He poured more of the foul water down his throat.

Blink.

His mother hovered over him, a hand on him and a hand on Kid. A distant part of his mind recognized the sick house.

Blink.

A shaman sat next to him, a hand on his chest, and his breathing eased. Behind the shaman stood a forbidding figure. Power raged in him, and then ice invaded the fire, burning him alive, cooling the fire. The man’s thoughts flooded his mind…

Forgive, spirit brother. This child was the trap, but he meant you no harm.

A voice Jason didn’t recognize answered. I choose him. As suddenly as the pain held him in a vise, the memory fled, and he stared in his mother’s eyes once more. An ashen-faced Kid still held his arm.

“MacPherson did make us.”

“My beautiful boys,” Molly said in her sweet southern accent. “He used you to trap greater spirits…and they turned on him, choosing you. There is no longer a line between where they begin and you end. He tried to murder my babies, and you survived to be so much more. Morning Star came and he saved you all.”

Wonder and grief twined within him. “I love you.” In all his life, he’d never been able to tell her.

“So do I,” Kid admitted, and Molly smiled at them.

Then she was gone and a sob shook his brother. Turning, Jason pulled his brother close for an embrace. He and his baby brother had walked into hell together and walked out alone.

Never again.