"You'll get used to it, with how fast your level's been growing."

  "You'll get used to it."

  Get used to it.

  That was what Meili had said, about an hour ago, and John still couldn't put the implications out of mind. Until recently, his impression of god-tiers was that they were rich, called the shots in lawmaking and business, and held exorbitantly expensive parties with tiny guest lists. These were the kinds of things everyone thought of when it came to god-tiers, not that they abandoned their children for being too weak.

  Thinking back on it now, it was obvious that nobody at his school knew anything about the lives of the strong, including himself. And why would they? Why would they know anything about a class of people they'd never met? Even if they had met someone, it would be like an ape staring at a flying airplane from the ground, only seeing the outer appearance with no knowledge of what was going on inside.

  His goal was to become a god-tier, but in reality, he had no idea how they lived. His only peephole into their world was the girl currently walking beside him.

  "Isn't it strange that no one can see in the dark?" Meili's voice came suddenly in the darkness.

  It didn't echo, exactly, but it resounded noticeably as it spread through the empty park around them. They had been walking in silence, John accompanying her back to the underground metro system after she'd finished explaining about her clan. The sudden voice and lack of visibility combined to startle him.

  "I've copied Night Vision before," he pointed out belatedly. "It was super weak, but I could see just fine."

  "I mean secondary sense enhancements, not vision-specialized abilities," Meili said. "Abilities active, I bet the average person can spot a fly on the other side of the street. But the moment it gets a little dark? Nothing."

  John exaggerated his nod so she could see it. A half-moon was glowing above them in the night sky, but Citrona Park was mostly a forest, and he could barely make out the lines of Meili's body. They were already walking nearly shoulder to shoulder.

  "Here's what I don't get," she kept going. "Why is seeing the dark so much rarer than seeing far away? I mean, imagine some alternate world where everyone has night vision as a secondary enhancement, and only a few specialized abilities have distance vision. That would be the exact opposite of reality, the complete reverse. Why don't we live in that world instead? I don't think I'd find it any more strange."

  "I guess aura just has something about it that makes night vision rare," John said, but he wasn't sure if he even cared. (At least, not compared to the idea that high-tiers abandoning their kids might be a common thing). "Isn't that what they're teaching you right now? You should ask the people at your company."

  "I already did, but they didn't know." There was a vague sense of Meili's head shaking as she spoke. "Nobody even had much of a guess. But I thought that, with your Aura Manipulation, you might have noticed something interesting."

  "Right."

  It occurred to him, belatedly, that this was the exact type of thing she'd wanted in return for helping him. Using Aura Manipulation to boost Aurology, just like Earth Manipulation boosted older architecture. That was the way Meili had put it. John also realized that he'd probably feel worse about himself if he didn't give a genuine effort in considering the question, a sensation that he only got with his dad as of late.

  So he started thinking through it seriously. He tried to recall the sensations he'd felt in his channels when he'd copied Night Vision.

  Unfortunately, sensing his own aura hadn't been a focus until recently, and he came up empty. "I can't really remember how Night Vision felt," he told her. "I can go grab some loser kid from my school and copy it again, though. That's what I did the first time. It'll be easier to tell if there's anything weird about the ability if I try it again now."

  "But tomorrow's your last day of school, right?" Meili asked. "One more day of exams?"

  "Yeah. English and History."

  "Don't bother, then," she said. "I was just a little curious, that's all. I should be focusing on helping you figure out your ability."

  And there it is again.

  "Which means you haven't asked me to help you with any of your research so far," John pointed out. "Training me is all you've done."

  The words probably surprised her. She went silent in response, at least, though Citrona Park was large enough that they hadn't reached the street lighting that would let him see her expression. And of course it felt odd to be so honestly direct with someone of Meili's level – but it was her own weird and level-contradicting behavior that made him feel comfortable doing it in the first place!

  "Are you disappointed?" Meili eventually asked. "Isn't that a good thing?"

  "Well, yeah. For me it is," he said. "Soon it'll be a week of you doing a bunch of stuff for me without getting anything in return. And that was already weird, but then you tell me about your clan, or I guess your mom's former clan, and your grandpa who wants to drag you back. It's not like your life's so perfect and flawless that you have time to waste on someone else."

  (Briefly, in the intermittent darkness, John wondered if he would have said all this if he could see her face.)

  "First of all," she replied, "my research plans are going to be a lot easier if you're better with your ability. I'm helping you help me."

  Meili stopped walking all of a sudden, which reflexively raised his guard. "Beyond that… Is that how you saw me at first? Some high-ranker without enough problems to occupy herself, who decided to go and get involved with someone else to make her life more interesting?"

  Up until an hour ago, actually.

  "Sort of," John said. "I think I'm getting it now. I agree that aura is important, definitely, so it would be really big if you discovered something that nobody else knows. And you're already strong, so a summer with less fighting isn't as big a deal for you as it is for me."

  She gave a satisfied hum at that. He let out a breath.

  What this reasoning didn't explain, funnily enough, was her lack of anger at situations like these: having her motivations under a microscope in a way that would have made Zirian or any other high-ranker react poorly. Neither did it explain why she seemed so unbothered at the prospect of him growing far beyond her. The prediction had seemed ridiculous at first, like an overexaggeration to get him on board. It looked like the chance of him surpassing Meili was growing, now, but her behavior hadn't changed.

  They stood still for a while, John waiting for her to start walking again. He felt like she had to be the one to start.

  Then there was a sudden sensation on his arm. Meili had grabbed him instead of taking a step, her whole body blotted out by a curtain of black.

  "Since we're doing this," she said, "let me tell you a similar sort of impression I have about you, John. Of course, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and you should just tell me…"

  "You can just say it."

  "...The way you talk about it, everything you know about your ability you figured out yourself. And I've read papers on the subject: this only happens when family situations are unique. So my impression has been that you were separated from your parents, somehow. Or they left."

  Meili's wording was soft and gentle, compared to the old 'loser John doesn't have a mom.'

  "You're right," he answered, calm despite the subject. "I got my ability from my mom, I guess, but I was too young to remember her when she was around. She's a god-tier, so I always thought she ditched us because she figured I would be a cripple. Some doctor probably made a prediction she didn't like."

  He was even more sure about the last part, actually, now that Meili had revealed her own family situation.

  "Then she was wrong," she pointed out. Her grip on his arm got a little tighter. "Just like my grandfather was wrong about my mother. Or her strength of bloodline, at least, with how desperate he is to have me back. He's closer to saying 'I was wrong' than most god-tiers will ever be."

  John couldn't imagine his mom saying something like that. He could hardly even imagine seeing her in the present, a woman he only knew through decade-old photos.

  But it was possible, especially if he became powerful and well-known enough to have a Turf Wars match broadcast on Sector TV. Even though she hadn't seen him for thirteen years, John looked close enough to a young version of his father, and he had a recognizable last name if it popped up on the morning news. Step one would be beating Zirian and becoming King. That was still a little out of reach, of course, but he was already closing the gap.

  "She could be anywhere in the world." John could feel his voice wavering as he spoke, though he hoped Meili wouldn't notice. "Do you really think it's possible for me? To hear her say that?"

  "Is that what you want?" she asked.

  "I- yeah. Yeah. I think so."

  Meili took a long, drawn-out breath.

  "Then here's what I think, John. I think it's good to be motivated by something. And right now, from how you've described your training, your main motivation is getting back at all the classmates who stomped on you when you were weak. You use the past as fuel."

  When did I ever say I got stomped on? Or is that a metaphor? I guess it's an easy thing to guess…

  "Maybe that feels right to you, as things stand," she went on. "But what about when you're a high-tier? Will you keep going at the same people, over and over, once you're two or three levels above them? When none of them can even hope to touch you? You would be dragging yourself down to their level, by then, when you could've easily moved on and flown past them."

  "You say that like I won't see these morons every day for the next three years," John countered. "They hate me. All they ever want to talk about is how I used to be a cripple, like it's some groundbreaking new thing that they just discovered. I'm not going to sit back and nod along while they talk shit, so if I have to mess someone up to boost my growth, why not choose people I can feel good about?"

  "Sure," she said. "But you don't have to stay at your school. If you reach high-tier at fifteen years old, any of the elite boarding schools would accept a transfer. And if you go far enough away, nobody will have heard of you or know you were a Late Bloomer. They'll even give you a scholarship, probably, if money is an issue."

  "That's-"

  John was halfway to protesting, but quickly clamped his mouth shut. He'd been assuming that he would stay at the same school until he graduated… but it was easy to start questioning that assumption, with the possibility of going to school literally anywhere he wanted.

  "Fine," he said. "Whatever. That's something I should think about, but I don't think that was your point, either. What are you really trying to say?"

  "That your mother left you, apparently," Meili said coolly. "If she had stayed and helped, there's a good chance you would have figured out your ability by ten or eleven instead of fourteen. Maybe you already knew that. And regardless, even if having someone to teach you wouldn't have made a difference, nobody would have done anything to you if she'd been around."

  "And?" he asked. He had a good guess.

  "Isn't it pretty self-explanatory? A parent should get some blame for tossing their defenseless kid into a pack of wolves. For every punch or kick you ever took, your mother might as well have thrown it."

  She swiveled, put her hand on his shoulder, and spoke into his ear.

  "Doesn't it make sense, on a basic level, to blame the full-grown woman who started it all, instead of the dumb kids who took advantage of the situation? Do you want to let her off scot-free, compared to them?"

  Fuck, that's…

  "…I never saw it that way," he muttered after a while. "I don't know."

  That was all he had in response. It was hard to know how to react, when somebody suggested that you blame your mom for your suffering more than the guy who once broke eleven of your bones. And John knew how blame worked better than anyone else in the district. For one, it was a lot better and easier to put the blame on someone physically near you, because that way you had someone to bite into, someone who you could insult and hurt.

  But that was exactly the issue here, wasn't it? His mom wasn't around to answer for anything.

  He found himself nodding a little as he contemplated. Maybe he'd never had the exact thought – that he wouldn't have been 'cripple John' with his mom around – but it had probably been somewhere further back in his head, because hearing it from her felt like hearing something he'd already known.

  "It sounds like you've thought about this a lot," he said. Like you have someone like my mom in your life. "Do you have someone who…"

  He trailed off. Meili went conspicuously silent.

  "I have someone," she said bitterly. "I always point my hate toward the right person. I can't spend a single day without thinking about what they've done."

  He became aware of her body, suddenly, as his focus shifted from the words spoken to the person saying them. They were still standing together in the darkness. Meili was still gripping his arm. The force of her hand, along with the slight hoarseness in her voice, were the only things he could gauge her emotions with.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  For some reason, probably a lack of vision, it almost seemed like she was crying.

  "Who?" he asked. "The leader of your clan?"

  "Not him," Meili said. "The person I'm thinking of is the opposite of your mother, at least when it comes to proximity."

  "What does that mean? You're saying they're never far away from you?"

  "Something like that," she answered.

  Then she started walking again, taking him with her through the dark.

  ***Beautiful***

  Outside the window by my cafe table, two uncomfortable-looking lines of pedestrians headed in opposite directions, squeezing by each other. I had been sipping a coffee for ten minutes, scanning the Saturday morning tourist crowd for an older man with red hair, but there had only been false alarms.

  I was early, but not much, so in a few minutes my grandfather would be late. My mother kept sending me worried texts in the interim, all of them a slightly different formulation of the same advice for how to deal with him. 'Don't provoke him by mentioning me,' for one, or 'Leave the moment it seems unsafe.'

  I found it sweet, really. I knew what my mother really wanted was for me to spit in his face and avenge her honor. And in this particular sense, her parallel with John wasn't lost on me: both of them were thrown away for being a disappointment, or at least that was how it looked on the surface. John himself was supposed to be watching me from a nearby observation deck, though I couldn't see him without my ability active, and our long conversation on Thursday was still heavy on my thoughts.

  I wasn't as worried as my mother was. With little better to do while I waited, my mind travelled off in an odd direction.

  Say you're a high schooler, and your English teacher of multiple years is always particularly hard on you. He grades your essays harshly, constantly calls you out in class. He forces you to stay after hours to justify your answers while everyone else can go.

  After experiencing this consistently, for a long enough time, most teenagers are going to feel some resentment. But say you find out, after graduating, that your parents once asked him to be stricter than usual – to hold you to a particularly high standard – and that's the only reason for his treatment of you. Not bias or discrimination or anything personal, but your parents' desire for you to become a good writer.

  Where does the blame go?

  Does it transfer to your parents, for being the root cause? Does it stay with your teacher, for following a totally unreasonable request? Or do you start blaming yourself, for not suspecting something is out of the ordinary earlier on?

  A messier mix of all three, maybe, or it might disappear altogether. Whatever the case, there's no singular, obvious target for you to point your finger at.

  …Of course, if you already dislike your parents before realizing they're involved, it's easier to cast further blame in their direction. Just like it's easy to move an already-rolling boulder but hard to move a stationary one. Resentment drawing in more of itself, but only if there's enough to get a 'ball' of negativity rolling.

  My messy thoughts on 'transferring blame' were relevant, ultimately, because it was the concept I'd decided to rely on. I was relying on John's initial negative feelings about his mother to kickstart the transferring effect I wanted. I was relying on Jane to be a temporary scapegoat – so John wouldn't brutalize his classmates too much, and The Authorities would have less of an excuse to 'reign him in.' I was relying on a final shift of blame once John learned the truth of what happened.

  Right as my thoughts petered out, a hand placed a ceramic coffee mug on my table with force. I was slow to realize the owner's identity – the man standing in front of me had hair that looked thirty years younger than what I'd been expecting. It was a deep, blood-colored red like my mother's, chopped into an inch-long cut, but my grandfather's face made him look like a man his age on close inspection.

  Probably dyes his hair, I thought. He draped his blazer jacket over the back of the seat across from me. He wore a slight frown, which got worse after he took a mouthful of the pitch-black liquid in his mug, and he dropped into the chair unceremoniously.

  "I should teach you how to select a suitable place of meeting," he muttered, as though he were talking to himself.

  "Where would you have preferred to talk?"

  My grandfather scoffed. "In private, of course. You need to demonstrate your ability to me, Meili, so I can verify your possession of Devil's Hands. This is not a proper location to do so."

  Or you just don't like the coffee. I tilted my head to the side. "Not even an 'it's a pleasure to meet you,' grandfather? Straight to business?"

  "We are not sitting here for pleasure," he said. "We are here to finalize an agreement for the good of the clan."

  He kept trying to stare me down with eye contact as he spoke, which would have worked if I were actually fifteen. I was unrushed, instead, and stared back while I took the time to think. The approach wasn't out of my expectations. The 'normal' behavior of people with authority differed from my old world, but one constant was that they still tended to use word choice to situate themselves on advantageous ground. 'For the good of the clan' was a phrase you would only use with a fellow clan member, not an outsider, and 'finalize an agreement' implied that we were somewhere near the finish line.

  We weren't, of course. It was far from inevitable that he would get his way. In terms of ultimate legal status with The Authorities, my family was a separate entity with no relation to the Strauss clan, and the man sitting in front of me had only himself to blame. I had the advantage as a result, and I could see an acknowledgement on his face, in the hand that gripped his mug. I was the only one in a position to make demands.

  "I don't think I'm ready to show you my ability just yet," I eventually said. "I haven't met anyone from the Strauss clan until today. Nobody ever told me I was part of a family any larger than three."

  "Then I will tell you," he replied. "As a part of the clan's central familial line, you are entitled to training that has been refined over hundreds of years. You also hold a responsibility to take the mantle of head as an adult, if there are no candidates more suitable than yourself. A responsibility to your uncles and aunts. Your cousins, nieces, and nephews."

  "People I've never met," I pointed out, still staring straight through him. "If I'm a part of a family line, who's the person who came before me in line? Which of my parents?"

  My grandfather shifted in his seat, stiff-faced, but his sudden discomfort was clear regardless. I had to wonder if the topic of my mother was truly unexpected, or, more likely, that he'd come despite the knowledge that I would try to bring it up.

  Regardless, he was clearly going to try to avoid dealing with it. He made a lukewarm comment about his coffee. Then a mildly condescending observation about the ambience. I tried to bolt him to the topic at hand, but he ignored me in that way only older people ever seemed to be able to do, and we were suddenly talking about anything but my relationship with the clan.

  He asked about my internship, about school. Then questions about the Great Lakes and North Atlantic Sectors. How did I feel about living without my parents? Living in such a large city?

  It was an obvious way to stall for thinking time, not that he was trying very hard to hide it, and I couldn't exactly make him stop.

  Finally, he seemed to accept that this was a point he couldn't dance around. "About your mother, Meili…"

  "Yes?"

  "I can admit that I have regrets about your mother's severance of ties." He shook his head and let out a breath. "Both the circumstances that caused it and the events that followed – I know her family accounts were confiscated, for instance. If your condition for cooperation is her membership, then I would be willing to discuss a full reversal with the rest of the family."

  Only because I'll be strong enough to offset taking on a lower-tier eyesore, I thought, immediately cynical. "That's not what anyone wants," I pointed out. "She doesn't want to go back."

  He frowned, squinting at me when I didn't elaborate. "Be explicit, then. What is it you're looking for?"

  Finally. "My condition is an apology," I answered. "I want you to tell my mother that you shouldn't have thrown her away."

  I reached for my phone, which had been sitting inconspicuously on the table. My grandfather had nothing to say, surprised as he seemed, and his gaze was halfway glued to it while I dialed a familiar number.

  "Supposedly," I paused before pressing the final digit, "you're here on behalf of the family, grandfather. They'll stay powerful so long as you're there, but they'll need me when you aren't around to watch them. What's an apology in comparison?"

  He stayed silent for a while. Huffed to himself. As if he were waiting for me to realize the absurdity of what I was asking for.

  "Ridiculous," he eventually muttered, shaking his head. "When I evolved my ability into Devil's Hands, there wasn't a higher honor than becoming the future head."

  I ignored the non-sequitur and slid my phone to the other side of the table. "I think someone acting unselfishly, for the sake of their family, wouldn't let pride get in the way."

  It vibrated for a while, establishing a connection in a whole different sector. He seemed deep in thought as we waited, studying my face and the screen in alternating turns, the creases in his face becoming pronounced and heavy. It was almost as if he was deciding who he would rather deal with, though in the end he chose the phone.

  Then the call, which I hadn't told him was a video call, went through. My mother's face appeared on the screen.

  "Father?" I could feel her surprise through the speakers. "Why are you using Meili's phone?"

  My grandfather gritted his teeth but started speaking. I had nothing to do but watch as a thirty-year conflict was won and lost.

  .

  .

  .

  He gave me a look once it was over, once he'd hung up, which seemed to demand that I forget what I'd seen. Almost gingerly, he took a small stack of paperwork from his briefcase and pushed it over to me, along with a pen and my phone.

  He seemed so humiliated that I nearly felt bad when I kept the phone and pushed the rest back.

  "Not yet," I said airily, like I'd never implied that an apology would be enough. "How do I know the clan's training will be beneficial to me? I'd like a few hours of sample, first, so I can make sure I'm not being tricked."

  The quality of his stare changed. From bitter and emotional to what I imagined a farmer would look like after discovering insecticide-resistant pests in his backyard.

  "…You aren't being facetious," he murmured, monotone. There was a good chance nobody had walked over him like this in the past decade.

  I shrugged. "Can you blame me for being suspicious? There are so many high-tier families in New Oakland, and I don't know if any of them will have much respect for a 'clan' that loses its only god-tier. Anyone would resort to lying in a situation like that. You lure me in with the promise of faster growth, but that turns out to be a lie, and suddenly I'm stuck as a human shield for a bunch of people I don't know and don't care about."

  I tried a fake grin, pausing to let everything set in. The fact that I'd never meant to accept from the beginning.

  "I have nothing to lose. And it's all thanks to you, grandfather, since you forced my mom out. I'm sure she'll be safe as the clan dies, much more than anyone else. She won't be a name on a list."

  He nodded slowly, hands shaking with repression as he tried to hold himself back. He clearly understood I was goading him. Still, knowledge alone wasn't enough to make the right choice, or else addicts of harmful drugs would barely exist. Similarly, the chemical urge to reclaim lost dignity through violence, so common in my new life, was hard to resist by simply 'knowing better.'

  "A sample?" he said. "Fine."

  A purple glow flashed in his eyes. The shine of ability activation. Every window in the cafe shattered, a moment later, and screams of shock rang out. Rapid, retreating footsteps pounded the ground.

  And my ability was active too, I realized blankly, given the detail with which I saw the ceiling.

  I was coughing a lot. Laid out on my back. Warmth and wetness trailed the skin of my stomach, and then came the searing pain.

  I screamed. I didn't know how many times. It was the same wail I'd let out the first time someone slashed me end to end. Then I saw the crimson, twisting, tree of thorns that stretched half of my vision, my grandfather's claws as its roots, and I became sure it was just the two of us, that every soul in the vicinity was gone.

  I struggled to move but couldn't, because branches speared my claws to the ground. Neither could I breathe. I felt my vision fading despite the enhancement, and there was a moment of panic, somewhere, as I realized that shards of glass would be an awful bed.

  "Are you satisfied?" my grandfather asked, looking down.

  I nodded truthfully. There was agony but no fear. I was scared of just one thing, and that was waking up trapped on a private flight to the clan headquarters. But I heard shouts closing in, the wailing of sirens, and I smiled in victory before the darkness came.

  "You need me alive," I heard my voice say. "I'll live."

  .

  .

  .

  "…I had a feeling, sir. I knew my grandfather would try violence if he didn't get his way quickly. That's exactly why-" I directed my sudden fit of coughing into my septum cup, careful not to disturb the serum injectors in my skin. "Sorry for the mess. That's exactly why I sent the pre-warning."

  The green-haired, uniformed man by my bedside wrote on his notepad and nodded.

  "Right. That's good foresight, young lady. And I understand you're at NxGen for the summer, so how important would you say it is that you get back to work by Monday? We would like to keep you here longer, for your recovery and in case we have more questions, but there's a good chance you're fine to get out early…"

  I answered him and answered the follow-ups, attempting to smile and stay friendly with a man who had more than likely killed multiple people. John was sitting quietly on a hospital stool across the room, fiddling with my binoculars, and I made periodic eye contact with him while I talked. He'd been pretty confused to receive them – fair enough, considering he could have watched from a nearby table in the cafe. Now that we'd lived another thirteen hours, ten of which I'd spent unconscious in a hospital bed with a hole in my stomach, I hoped the logic was clear.

  Agent Rivera and his absent partner (whose name I couldn't recall, on account of having two pints of blood missing from my body) had let John into the room at my request. Maybe there was an element of pity, too, from seeing a teen girl perforated by her own grandfather, but the Authority Agent never mentioned it. He was surprisingly quick with his questions, and he'd likely guessed that I would prefer to be left alone with a friend my age, so he left the room immediately once he was finished.

  "This wasn't too bad, don't you think?" I spoke, gesturing around me. "The best recovery tech in the world, apparently. I think it's better than my school's infirmary."

  John didn't seem worried about my recovery. Injuries like the long, elliptical hole in my stomach or the scribbling, chicken scratch scabs on my face were probably commonplace for him. He looked confused and conflicted, instead, as he walked to my bedside with the bag I'd given him for safekeeping.

  "I feel like I'm missing something." He set the bag on the floor. He struggled for words for a while before saying, "Were you trying to get him to destroy you? I mean, why did you just lie there and not extend your claws or anything? Why did you say all that extra shit? That was…"

  "Brutal," I finished. "Totally unpleasant. I also wanted and planned for it. I sent an early alert and gave you all my important stuff."

  "The Authorities can't find your grandpa," John said. "If that was part of your plan, getting him arrested. I talked with an agent who said he's probably back in the West Coast Sector by now, so they won't even bother trying."

  "I wasn't counting on it," I said, shaking my head. "The 'different sector' stuff is just an excuse, anyway, so they can avoid all the power struggle and maneuvering that would come with putting a god-tier on trial."

  "Right. Right. So why, then? What was the point?" John leaned over and grabbed me on the shoulders, intense. "Why would you let yourself, let that-"

  "I really don't want to join the clan," I explained, gingerly brushing his hands off. "I was afraid my grandfather had some friends in the Sector Authorities, maybe ones in the right department to recategorize my family status. That won't be happening now. Not when The Authorities know he beat me unconscious. He needed me alive, too, and ultimately healthy, which meant he couldn't risk doing anything I might not recover from."

  John's eyes widened in understanding, and his posture relaxed a little, so I took the time to think.

  "My mom kept telling me to be careful this morning," I decided to say. "To avoid provoking him. But this was what she really wanted, what she's wanted for thirty years, for me to tell him that the clan can go die and we won't shed a tear. I knew he'd probably get violent in response. I knew, obviously, that it would be one-sided."

  I grinned at him. The stretch on my skin split the scab wounds on my face. Tear-like beads of blood dripped down my cheek.

  "It was worth it still. Worth getting my face fucked up, worth having my intestines cut in fractions. I'm the one who got what I wanted."

  John's brow furrowed as he thought, and he ultimately shook his head in silence. I took it as a disagreement. By my understanding, he thought that there was nothing worth getting beaten into the ground for – that having the strength to win every time, to never be beaten, was the ultimate goal.

  But that perspective was also the reason I'd done this, in no smaller part than my outward explanation. To show that you could win the fight and still lose.

  There were times when maiming your granddaughter wouldn't help. Times when you could only face your wretchedness, regardless of how strong you were, times when you needed a different type of strength than the stomach-splitting kind. Times when your real opponent was a past mistake.

  "I was in the wrong," my grandfather had muttered, the shield of ability level gone. "How can I apologize?"

  "Hang up the call," my mother had replied. "I don't want you in my life."