Idris bounded up the stairs of his mother’s apartment. Even though he’d just smashed some guy’s face in, found out that Isla had a murderous ex, and was now preparing to flee his hometown, he felt lighter than he had in years.

Something about having a mission was really juicing him. Not to mention the fact that he finally had a good enough reason to get his mother out of this piece of shit town. She’d always lingered here, wanted to stay for reasons totally beyond him. She was beautiful, hilarious, strong-willed, and so much bigger than Chestershire. He’d always known that.

He suspected that she’d never wanted to leave because this was the last place they’d seen his father. He’d been a reclusive man, and he’d left for the mountains one morning, kissed the two of them goodbye, and never been seen again. It was so long ago that Idris couldn’t even remember him. He certainly didn’t remember the day he left. He’d long ago stopped trying to figure out if he’d left them on purpose or gotten himself lost or killed or what.

Idris didn’t really care. It was a wound long healed. He took care of his mother and she took care of him. That was all that mattered.

And now Isla. 

She mattered, too. And he was adding her to the list of things to take care of whether she wanted it or not. He suspected that she wouldn’t like being added to that list considering how she’d reacted after they’d kissed. Like he was about to collar her and make her a permanent addition to his dungeon or some medieval shit.

He guessed that sort of made sense considering that she’d definitely had some unhealthy shit going on with that Ivanovich or whatever the fuck his name was. Idris’s fists curled again just thinking about him.

About the way she’d looked when he’d burst into the room.

The second her earring hit his foot from under the door he’d known something was wrong. The customers were not supposed to touch the girls. Even in the private dances, they were supposed to just sit there and receive, keep their hands to themselves. If her jewelry was flying off then he knew something was really up.

He’d burst into the room and he’d never felt that way before in his life. Rage had pumped through his blood like poison. The guy had her on the floor, on her stomach, squeezing her throat. For one second, Idris had worried that he was too late. But then, he’d sprinted across the floor, his only intention to rip this guy’s heart out through his throat.

She was okay, she was just fine, he reminded himself. He’d feel better when he had a good look at her neck, check out that bruising. But she was walking and talking and breathing right there behind him in the stairwell.

And she was about to meet his mother. Idris grinned to himself for a moment while he thought about that. He was bringing a stripper home to Ma.

Felice was going to have a field day with this one.

Idris ducked off the stairwell onto his mother’s floor, tugging Isla after him. Her high heels rang out on the parquet floor. They drew his attention and he paused outside his mother’s door, surveyed Isla. She stood there in smudged makeup, stripper heels, and one of his t-shirts almost down to his knees. And underneath that was some underwear that barely even counted. She looked good enough to eat and perfectly frazzled. And there it was, the crooked little part in her hair.

He didn’t think twice, he didn’t question the impulse. He merely opened his arms and drew her into his chest. He dropped his cheek to the top of her head for one second as his arms pressed all around her. She was stiff in his arms as if she were holding herself back from him.

Which was okay, he reminded himself. She’d just been attacked by an ex-boyfriend. Trusting random dudes probably wasn’t high on her self-preservation list right now.

“You don’t know me yet, Isla,” he said, releasing her and stepping back. She was tousled and gorgeous and looking more than a little dazed. It probably wasn’t the moment for intensity, but he needed her to hear this. “So you don’t know that you can trust me. And that’s fine. For now. But I just want to go on record here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Isla’s eyes were bottomless in the fluorescent lighting of the hallway. She looked up at him, and he knew that she’d heard him, even if she wasn’t giving much away. That was fine. He was just trying to put all his cards on the table. He needed her to know that he wasn’t messing around.

“Are you ready?” he asked, one hand on the doorknob of his mother’s apartment.

“To meet your mother?” she asked, a bemused expression on her face as she looked down at her ridiculous outfit. “Sure. Why not?”

He grinned at her. And unlocked the door. He led Isla down the front hallway, frowning when he realized that the kitchen lights were still on. That was weird. It was almost 2 in the morning. He’d expected that he would have to rouse his mother from bed at this point in the night. And she never left the lights on.

“Ma?” he called, tugging Isla down the hallway toward the kitchen. He froze in his tracks at what he saw there.

His mother, sitting at her kitchen table with her hands all twisted up in some dude’s. Some old dude’s. Two glasses of tea sat cooling in front of them and their faces were about an inch apart from one another, like they’d just been kissing. The two of them snapped around to stare at Idris and Isla in the doorway to the kitchen.

His mother, always a cool customer, did not jump up or flutter her hands or even blush. She simply leaned back in her chair, surveying her son calmly. “Idris, I wasn’t expecting you.” She looked past him at Isla, a curious expression crossing her face at the girl’s attire. “Or company.”

Idris was utterly flabbergasted. He was not able to form words. Or thoughts. Or a heartbeat. He ignored his mother. He was too busy staring into his own eyes from across the room. The man sitting at the table. Older, blonde and silver, lines around his eyes. That man had Idris’s eyes. Exactly.

The man stared right back at Idris, studying him in exactly the same manner.

Behind him, Isla’s hand tightened on Idris’s and it brought him back to life, or at least, it brought him back to the room.

He gave his head a quick shake. “Ma, this is Isla Angotti. Isla, this is my mother, Felice Prodigo.”

Isla stepped around him and took his mother’s hand. “Hello. I’m sorry for the way I’m dressed. It’s been a little bit of an unusual night.”

“For all of us, then,” Felice said, smiling kindly at Isla and then turning her gaze back to the man at the table. Who still hadn’t looked away from Idris.

Isla looked between Idris and the man at the table, obviously waiting for an introduction. But in doing so, her eyes widened. “You must be Idris’s father?” she asked, extending her hand to him.

The man at the table flicked his eyes to Isla’s hand as if he were in a daze. But he rose from the table and took her hand. “How did you know?” he asked her in a deep voice that was almost identical to Idris’s.

“Your eyes,” Isla replied. “And the frown.”

Felice let out a little laugh, but there was more than humor behind it. There was pain. “I’ve always thought the same thing.” She turned to the man and to Isla. “I wonder if I might have a moment alone with my son.”

“Of course,” Isla said, immediately moving to get out of the way. She’d obviously stumbled into some family business here and she clearly didn’t want to get in the way.

“No,” Idris said, speaking for the first time and reaching out for Isla gently. He pulled her in front of him, like a shield, although he wouldn’t have realized that. “I’m not leaving her alone tonight.”

Felice’s eyes narrowed in confusion but she shrugged her shoulders. She was a patient woman. And if her son wanted to do this in front of people, well, he was a grown man. And he had been for a long time. Too long, in her eyes.

“Fine. Then sit,” Felice said, her eyes steady on her son’s as she kicked a chair out from the table with her foot. “Both of you.”              

Isla dropped down into the chair immediately and Idris could tell that the whole situation was making her even more nervous than she already was. It was that, more than his mother’s command, that had him easing himself into the chair next to his mother.

“This is Donovan Prodigo,” Felice said, taking Idris’s hand. “Your father.”

Idris said nothing, merely gazing across the table at the man. His father. And then he realized that his father was gazing right back at him in the exact same manner. It made him uncomfortable. He’d always thought that this cool reserve was something he’d taught himself. But maybe not. Maybe he’d come by it naturally.

Suddenly Donovan scrubbed his hands across his face. “God, Felice, there’s so much to explain. Too much. How do we do this?”

“Well,” she turned to him. “Let’s start with the easiest parts. The ones he’ll be able to swallow right away.”

“Okay,” Donovan nodded. He looked tired. And sad. “Let’s start here. I love you. I have since the moment we realized your mother was pregnant. And I’ve never stopped.”

Idris recoiled like he’d been slapped. He legitimately didn’t think he could say the same. He didn’t even know the man. He’d long ago stopped caring that he wasn’t around. He barely even thought about him anymore. Or wondered. He always thought that if he saw him again, he’d feel something. Anything.

Felice squeezed Idris’s hand and it was then that he realized that Isla had his other hand. He squeezed both.

“Idris,” Felice said softly. “The decision for your father to leave was one that we both made. He didn’t abandon us. He left because he had to. For the sake of our family.”

Idris turned to Isla and he saw the same skepticism in her eyes that he felt in his heart. Wasn’t this the kind of shit that people always fed themselves about the people who left them? That it wasn’t selfish. That it was just for the greater good?

Suddenly Donovan was rising and pacing to the other side of the kitchen. He gazed out the kitchen window. “God, is this what it’s like talking to me?” he asked darkly.

Felice let out another little laugh; this one had more mirth than the first. “Like talking to a brick wall? Yeah, I haven’t exactly spent my life surrounded by chatty Cathys.”

And then Idris was rising from the table too. “Look, Ma. We have to go.”

He’d decided that he wasn’t dealing with this shit right now. The urgency of Isla’s danger had been shaken off for a second, just with the shock of seeing Donovan. But it was back now. And he didn’t want to prolong their stay in Chestershire for another second.

“What?” Felice asked, her eyebrows flying up her forehead. “Why?”

Idris laid a hand over Isla’s shoulders. “I can’t explain it all right now. But Isla and I are in danger. And so are you. We have to get the hell out of here. Right now. You can come or not,” he said to Donovan. “I don’t care as long as we leave right now.”

“Fine, that’s fine,” Donovan said, pacing over to Felice. “That’s perfect, actually. Let’s just take him right there. We can all go now.”

Something tipped in Idris at the sight of this man holding his mother’s shoulders, speaking to her so urgently, so intimately.

“Are you nuts, Donovan? He’ll think he’s lost his mind. And didn’t you say this whole thing has to be a choice? He has to agree to go.”

Donovan ripped his hands through his hair in a gesture that Idris automatically recognized as one of his own. “Fine, then it has to be O. It’s the only way he’s gonna accept all this.”

The word ‘O’ rang in Idris’s head. Echoed down through him. What were they talking about? It was ringing in his head like a bell. Something from his childhood. When he was young. Not more than five years old. What was that? O.

And he remembered all at once. He’d had an imaginary friend named O. It was a little boy. A little white blonde kid. The memory was grainy. But Idris used to play with him. He’d lived under Idris’s bed or something? They’d play in the night after Idris was supposed to be asleep.

God, he hadn’t thought about this in years.

Idris shook his head. Reminded himself of his priorities. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but we’re leaving in five minutes. Ma, pack a bag if you have to.”

Then his mother shocked the shit out of him by leaning down and pulling up an already-packed backpack. “One step ahead of you. We had plans to come find you in the morning to leave anyways.”

She tossed the bag over her shoulder. Idris felt like he was in a dream.

“Okay, kids,” Felice said, looking over at everyone. “Looks like we all have a fair amount of explaining to do. So, I’m driving. We’re going into the mountains to a friend’s house where there’s somebody who can explain all of our side to you, Idris. In the meantime, you’re going to explain all of this.” She gestured at Isla’s haphazard outfit.

“Sounds good,” Isla said, immediately starting to follow Felice out of the room.

Idris grabbed her hand. “You’re okay with this?” he asked, incredulous.

“Idris, I don’t care if we’re headed to Oz right now as long as it gets me the fuck out of Chestershire.”

He watched her follow his mother out of the kitchen and down the hall. With a small flip of his stomach, he realized he was alone with the man. Donovan. His father.

“Let’s go,” Donovan said. “Before your mother leaves without us.”