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“Sit down,” I say.

Her chin lifts.

“Because you are two days out from heat and exhausted,” I add. “Not because I think sitting makes this easier.”

“Acceptable clarification.”

She lets Ezra guide her back to the couch. I want to put myself between her and every road I’ve ever walked, but that isn’t how this works. I sit in the chair across from them instead.

The house smells like cookies, rosemary, orange peel, basil, and fear. Mine most of all.

“I was seventeen when I joined,” I say. “Ezra and I were in the same group home. I was aging out. He wasn’t.”

Pepper’s fingers tighten around Ezra’s. Ezra looks down at their joined hands.

I force myself to keep going. “Aging out means people stop pretending the system has plans for you. You get a trash bag for your clothes, a list of shelters that are already full, and advice from adults who go home to locked doors and full refrigerators.”

Pepper’s face softens. I hate that I have put that look there.

“Ezra still had time left,” I say. “It wasn’t safe for him there, but he still had a couple of years before he aged out. I was supposed to leave him there and figure out my life somewhere else.”

“You were babies,” she says.

“I was turning eighteen.”

“That’s still a kid.”

No one ever puts it like that. She says my age as if it’s testament to the fact I survived what I did. The back of my throat tightens.

Ezra’s voice comes low beside her. “He tried everything before Hammer.”

I look at him. He offers her the part of the story I would leave out if shame had its way.

“He worked day labor,” he says. “Cleaned boats. Hauled supplies.”

I slept in places I would have burned down before letting Ezra step inside them. But no matter what I did, it was never enough. “Every time I saved money, something took it. Food. A busted bike. A bribe to get someone at the home to let me see him after visiting hours.”

Pepper’s eyes shine, and I hate that she wants to cry for me.

“Hammer found me at the docks,” I say. “He knew I needed work and a roof over my head. And he knew about Ezra too. How I needed to keep him safe.”

Ezra’s mouth pulls tight. “You were always making my safety your responsibility.”

“You were always mine, and I will always protect you.” The words leave before I decide whether I should say them.

Pepper inhales softly.

Ezra looks at me, and for a moment, the fading stops.

I turn back to Pepper because she deserves my eyes while I tell her the part that could make her afraid of my hands. “Hammer gave me work first. Real work. Hauling, fixing fences, moving supplies. He paid cash. He let me sleep in a shed behind one of his garages. It didn’t start with the worst of it.”

“That would have been too easy to refuse,” Pepper says.

“Yes.”

Her mind is quick, but her voice is careful. She’s holding herself still the way people do around wounded animals and loaded guns. Maybe I’m both kinds of dangerous.

“The jobs changed. They got rougher. Watch this place. Move this package. Stand behind that man and look mean enough that he pays. By then I had money for food. I had a place to sleep. I had a way to keep seeing Ezra.” My hands curl over my knees. “Hammer made every step feel like the price of keeping the last one.”