The moment I hear my father’s voice from the living room, I experience an emotion I don’t think I’ve ever felt in my life.

Rage.

Pure, unadulterated rage.

Whenever I tried to write rage, I always thought of it as a red thing.

But it’s actually white, flashing in my vision, eclipsing it like a nuclear explosion, searing through my veins like a flash of light. I can’t believe my father’s here.

And if he’s here, and Mike and Ryan are here...then Daddy must've pulled something pretty dirty to find out where we are.

I thought it was strange when they showed up, but I’d tried to play along until Riker came back. I didn’t know what was going on. I was afraid of tipping off anyone Mike was involved with if I sent him packing. I’d thought maybe the Pilgrims had tracked us here through Mike.

Knowing it's my father – and that my own father might accidentally lead the Pilgrims here anyway with his arrogant carelessness, without a care for my life, or Riker’s, or Em’s – makes it so much worse.

Before I can stop myself, I’m stalking into the living room, Em and Ryan trailing behind me like confused ducklings. I barely get a “Dad, what do you think—” out before he’s suddenly pulling me into a hug, catching me completely off guard with the tightness of his grip.

I go stiff, alarm prickling through my entire body. My father doesn’t hug like this.

He’s never been overly physically affectionate with me, just the occasional brush of his fingers down my arm or through my hair, fleeting and always leaving me feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

This is more than uncomfortable, the tightness of his grip possessive in a way that leaves me squirming and cold and thinking of Milah with her dress torn, crying over her skinned knees and elbows. I flick an almost desperate look at Riker over Daddy’s shoulder, but he’s glaring at Mike as Mike takes the opportunity to grab his son and bolt out the door, away from this situation.

I wish I could follow him.

“Darling Olivia,” Dad says, the overwrought emotion in his voice practically dripping falseness. “I can’t believe they have you living out here like this. Come home, baby girl. Please come home.”

“No.”

That’s what it takes to get me to thrust away from him, putting an arm’s length of distance between us – but it takes all my strength and all my bravery not to put Riker between us, too, a solid wall of protection so that Daddy can’t try to overwhelm me again.

It’s disturbing how easy it is to see him, now.

To know he does things like this to throw me off guard so I’ll be too spun around to question anything or do anything but let him maneuver me in whatever direction he wants me to go. It’s controlling. It’s abusive.

And I won’t let it happen anymore.

I square my shoulders, lifting my chin. I don’t need Riker to hold me up. I’ll stand on my own. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I’m here because it’s the safest place to be, but you being here is jeopardizing the safety of everyone in this house.”

Daddy scoffs, smoothing his graying hair back and looking at me like I’m the little girl I know I still am in his mind. “Don’t be silly, darling. How can anyone keep you safe in a rickety cabin like this? I’ve upgraded the security at my estate, and –”

“It’s not the security that’s the problem,” I point out, interrupting him for once, and his eyes go flinty. “It’s the people. I trust the people here. I don’t trust the people at your estate. That...” I swallow hard. Bravery or not, it’s hard to admit this out loud. “That includes you. Not anymore.”

My father’s mask hardly cracks, but that hardness in his eyes is impenetrable. “Now you’re being ridiculous. Hysterical. Olivia, you are coming home. I’m your father, and I know what’s best for you. All this madness, it's gone to your head. You aren’t mature enough or experienced enough to be making decisions like this.”

“Nice to finally know what you really think of me. But no.” I never thought standing up for myself would hurt so much, but I guess the problem is when you get bigger than people think you should be, the first thing they want to do is knock you down.

I’m still standing, though, while I continue, “I’m staying here, Daddy. And so are you, until you start telling me the truth.”

Daddy looks down his nose at me. “I don’t understand what truth you think needs telling.”

There it is. The you’re crazy tone. The you’re a little girl, your imagination’s running away with you tone, but it doesn’t work on me anymore. I shake my head.

“Em, go back in the bedroom,” I whisper. She doesn’t need to hear this.

Em bites her lip, standing awkwardly behind me. “But...”

“Please, Em. This is serious.”

She nods quickly, already retreating. “Okay.”

I don’t speak again until she’s gone, shutting the bedroom door with a soft click of the latch.

Then I meet my father’s eyes, staring him down. “Tell me what’s really going on. Tell me about your real involvement with this. This isn't all Milah's mistakes. I want to know what's really going on. With the Pilgrims, with the Runners...all of it.” When I say the name Runners, that’s when his expression gives him away, his eyes widening slightly, his entire body oddly motionless. “You’ve been acting strange since this started. Erratic. Changing your mind all the time. Like you’re trying to hide something.” I step closer to him. “If you really love me, Daddy...just give it up. Tell me what you’re hiding.”

He looks at me for a moment, a strange look like he’s afraid I might hurt him, before he looks over his shoulder toward the door. But Riker’s there.

He positions himself in front of the door, a grim and forbidding obstacle that my father isn’t getting through. My dad’s a tall man, but he’s not Riker; over two hundred pounds of solid slab muscle standing with his feet planted and his arms folded over his chest and a look on his face that says if my father tries to force his way past, Riker will find a way to lay him on the ground very, very easily.

I catch Riker’s eye. Please, I mouth.

I need him to let me handle this. I need him here, but I need him doing just what he’s doing right now: backing me up wordlessly, letting me do the talking while he sends his own message with silence.

His jaw sets as if he’s about to argue, before he sighs and nods subtly.

It gives me the boost I need, to know he’s trusting me to take the lead.

I wait until my father finally looks at me again. There’s a wariness there, careful, and I can tell from the way he watches me that he’s trying to figure out how to talk his way out of this.

That's all he's ever had besides money. Words.

Hollow, slick lies and meaningless bait.

He's calculating how to get off free, without consequences, if he can just snowball me into accepting whatever he says. I plant my hands on my hips, glaring at him, just waiting until he stops with his mental gymnastics. Finally, he settles on a smile.

“If it will ease your mind, darling, of course we can talk things out. I had no idea you were fussing and worrying so much.”

He’s patronizing me. I don’t care. I point at the couch. “Sit.”

He folds himself ingratiatingly onto the couch, even if he curls his upper lip at the crocheted throw and plucks at it as if it might get his fine wool suit dirty. He crosses his legs, lacing his fingers together, and gives me with a plastic smile. “Really, dearest, all this because I asked you to come home? I never –”

“You never ask anything. You just phrase your orders a bit more politely.”

Dad raises both brows. “Do I? And where's this coming from now? Who’s been feeding you this sort of nonsense?”

“No one’s been feeding me anything!” I let a bit of my frustration out, flinging a hand out, before taking a deep breath and calming myself. I can’t fly off the handle, or he’ll just treat me like a little girl throwing a tantrum. “It’s normal for adults to want to make their own choices, instead of having them dictated and following along passively. And you seem to have missed the fact that I’m an adult now. Just because you couldn’t stop Milah from growing up too fast, doesn’t mean you can keep me as your little girl forever to make up for it. I'm not a damn bird in a cage.”

Briefly, Daddy’s face crumples. It’s the first honest expression I’ve seen out of him in a long time.

Then it closes over in a look of icy offense, flung right at Riker. “Is this your doing, Woods? Making Olivia think she can survive without my help?”

“Don’t,” Riker says softly.

It's just one word, barely heard, but it’s as heavy as a sledgehammer.

I fold my arms over my chest. “Do you really think I’m that incapable of independent thought? Like I can’t come up with these ideas myself? Do you think I don’t know what to think, without you to tell me?”

“Now, dearest, that’s a bit –”

“Don’t. You heard him. You’re going to say something that makes me feel silly and foolish and small, so you can dismiss everything I think and feel,” I bite off bitterly. “Don’t you get that’s why I don’t want to come back? You think I can’t survive in the outside world, but you’d be surprised how well I do when people trust me to stand on my own. Riker’s trusted me to pull my own weight, and damn it, Daddy, I’ve been pulling.”

My father blinks, leaning back against the sofa, looking between me and Riker, before his eyes widen with an offended gasp, his brows lowering. “You’ve got to be damn well fucking kidding me.”

Finally.

There’s real Daddy.

Not fundraiser Dad, mild and charming for the masses. It's controlling, angry Dad, tongue all sharp barbs and foul words. “You’ve defiled my daughter,” he flings at Riker. “You’re actually sleeping with her, aren't you? Animal. I should sue. To think I'm paying you to take liberties you have no right to!”

“Technically,” Riker points out grimly, eyes flashing with cold green steel and edges sharp enough to cut, “you aren’t paying me at all. Enguard is.”

“Well, they won’t be able to pay you a penny after I sue your entire company into bankruptcy,” my father hisses, glowering at Riker, ignoring that I’m even in the room. “My daughter is not something you can paw over, some toy, you maniac.”

“Your daughter,” I say, lips trembling, throat tight, eyes stinging, “is not some thing at all. That's what you can’t seem to figure out. I’m a person. Not an object. And my life is mine. Not your business. Nothing's your business except what you’ve done to fuck up my life with whatever it was you did to get us in this situation in the first place.”

The entire room goes still. My hand flies to my mouth, to my burning face.

I don’t think I’ve ever said fuck in front of my father in my life, but it just drops out. I’m that angry, but also that ready to breakdown crying.

This is so messed up. I wanted to be strong in front of Daddy, but all he had to do was talk about me in that mortifying, horrible, dehumanizing way to reduce me to tears.

Maybe I really am a little girl after all.

He starts to open his mouth, but Riker stops him with a single cold word. “No.”

A chill runs up my spine. He’s looking at my father with that same blank, deadly expression he’d had when he’d taken that Pilgrim down and made him talk one careful, precisely applied bit of pain and terror at a time. “I don’t think you need to say another word to Liv if you’re going to speak to her that way.” His voice gentles, just for me, but that hard, razor-wire stare is just for my father. “Liv, go wait with Em. Tell her everything’s okay.”

I know I shouldn’t run away, but I need to go right now.

I need to be anywhere but within my father’s sight, when he’s looking at me like I’ve somehow betrayed him.

Of course I have. I’ve refused to be his perfect, docile little doll anymore, empty and quiet and sweet. I’ve refused to live up to the image he’s painted of who I should be. I’ve let him down by daring to be my own person.

But not nearly as much as he’s let me down, by showing who I really am in his eyes.

I turn and run before the tears can come.

And I don’t feel sorry for my father at all, as the bedroom door closes on Riker’s steady murmur of, “Now, Mr. Holly...you and I are going to have a talk.”

When I step into the bedroom, Em looks as miserable as I feel.

She’s slumped on the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest, and from the wet tracks on her cheeks, she’s obviously been crying. I kind of want to curl up and cry next to her, but I have to be the adult here.

Realizing that Em needs me helps me pull myself together a bit, out of my own shock and upset.

I put on a smile for her and sink down on the edge of the bed near her feet.

“Hey,” I offer softly.

Em sniffles, rubbing at her nose and returning a tremulous smile. “Hey.”

“You okay?”

“Not really,” she mumbles and buries her mouth against her folded forearm. “Dad’s kind of a jerk, you know?”

“Dads can be like that,” I murmur.

“Your Dad’s not so great either, huh?”

“My Dad’s...got issues. Big ones. But Em...” I don’t want to make her feel like what she’s feeling right now is wrong.

I can’t do that to her, not when people do it to me so often. But I know she’s a smart girl, and it might help her to understand that her Dad’s on her side this time. Unlike mine.

Riker’s her everything, her rock, her best friend and her worst enemy, her role model and her chain, all those confusing things a parent is going to be at this age when she’s just figuring out who she is...but he’s not trying to hurt her, and I think with a little nudging, she can see that. “You know your Dad made Ryan leave for his own safety, right? And for ours?”

“He made Ryan leave because I’m not allowed to date boys yet and Dad figured out I like him,” she bites off, her cheeks coloring with anger and mortification. “And now he's humiliated me so bad, Ryan will never talk to me again!”

“Are you kidding me? Ryan probably thinks you’re a cool super spy now. Totally Kim Possible. Later, when this is all over, you can tell him how you helped your dad take down those bad guys at the airport. Not a lot of twelve-year-olds can say they've been in a shootout.”

I bite my tongue. For a second, I feel sick that our mess put her in one, but we lived. And Em just sits up with a look that says something different.

Her eyes light, but warily. “Really, Liv?”

“Really.” I find another smile just for her, reaching out to lightly nudge one knuckle against her cheek. “I know it feels like your dad’s being a massive jerk right now. My dad’s being a massive jerk, too. But all these rules...they’re bigger than school, and crushes, and parents being mean. People are trying to kill me, Em.”

“I know. And they’re trying to kill us, too.”

I hate that she has to say this so calmly, so matter-of-factly. But I’m also proud of her that she’s learned from the lessons Riker’s laid down. “Yes. And if they’ll hurt you, then they’ll hurt Ryan, too. That’s really what this is all about. Your dad wants your friend to be safe, and he wants you to be safe. Once this is over, you can see Ryan again, and I’ll bet your dad will even be glad to chaperone you on a few dates.”

Her face flames, her eyes widening. “Ew, I don’t want to date Ryan! We're friends!”

“No?” I grin. “That’s okay, too. Having friends who like the things you like is the best. And you deserve those kinds of friends, Em.”

She bites her lip, watching me uncertainly. “Are...are we friends, too?”

I don’t know if my heart wants to break or explode with this warm, sweet fullness, but I do know I can’t resist hugging her any longer. I reach for her and she tumbles against me. Then I remember being a little girl tumbling against my older sister just this way, clinging for the kind of comfort words just can’t bring. I hug Em close, and run my fingers through her hair.

“Of course we’re friends, sweetie,” I murmur. “Of course.”

She just clings to me. She’s quiet, so quiet about it, but I can tell she’s crying.

I let her, holding her close, and repress the urge to cry myself. There’s no one here to tell me that my dad really means the best, because he doesn’t.

He means what’s best for him, and I hate that the blinders I’ve been wearing for over twenty years have been stripped away this way so I can see my father for the complete and utter bastard he is.

Honestly, the fact that I need almost an entire hand to count his wives really should have tipped me off sooner.

When that many women can’t stand you, the problem isn’t the women.

I’ve been so naive. So sheltered. This twelve-year-old girl is more worldly wise than I am, but I gotta say...I could pick worse role models than a brilliant little thing like Em Woods.

She subsides before long, and after a few sniffles suddenly breaks the silence with, “I know about you and Dad.” She blinks owlishly up at me through the tear-spiked fan of her lashes. “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are.”

I wince, but try to tease, “Hey, I’d like to think we’re pretty sneaky. You’re just too smart for us.” But it feels fake and forced, and I let the act drop with a sigh, looking at her ruefully. “I’m sorry, Em.”

“Why are you sorry?” She shakes her head, confusion flitting across her face. “Dad’s happy when he’s around you.”

She nearly stops my heart with that one, then starts it again when she admits shyly, “I’m happy when I’m around you.” She rubs at her tear-pinkened nose. “It's...it's okay if you're gonna be my new mom.”

For a second, I'm in shock. Then I'm in this daze of emotions, trying to speak too much at once, this rush of words and feelings and fears that I'll screw this up bad.

“Oh, Em! Sweetie, no.” I gather her close again, cradling her head against my shoulder. “No one can be your new mom, because your real mother loved you very much...no one can take her place. Your mom will always be your mom, even when she’s gone. But me? I’m still your friend. And your dad's.” I press a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Even if your dad and I don’t work out...I’ll always be your friend, okay?”

She searches my face, questioning if she can trust those words, before a sweet smile seems to offer her acceptance. “Okay,” she says, and burrows down against me again.

I’m content to stay like this. Em is just as much a comfort to me as I’m trying to be to her. But still, I can hear voices from the living room, Riker’s steady and calm, my father’s raised and agitated, and I wonder.

How many times can my father lie to Riker Woods before Riker loses his patience?