Page 50 of Thorne
"It's a fine line," Martha murmurs. She looks at me, her gaze piercing. "Help me understand. You're a brilliant woman. How does someone like you end up building a weapon for Phoenix?"
I look at the laundry, the cotton soft against my palms. "I was a prodigy. My father was a professor of applied mathematics. To him, I wasn't a daughter; I was a proof. If I didn't get the answer right, I didn't exist."
I fold a small dinosaur-printed shirt, my fingers tracing the tail of the T-rex.
"Math was a nightmare for me as a kid," I continue, the memory surfacing with unexpected clarity. "The way they taught it in school. The linear, rote memorization. It made no sense. The numbers just jumped around the page. I believed I was broken. I believed I was stupid."
Martha stops matching socks, her hands still. "Lily thinks she's stupid. The math just … It won't settle for her."
"It didn't settle for me either." A ghost of a smile touches my lips. "Not until I stumbled onto the Trachtenberg method."
"What's that?"
"It's a system of mental mathematics. It doesn't rely on the 'rules.' It relies on patterns. Shorthand logic. The moment I learned the tricks, the world opened up. Nothing could hold me back after that. The numbers stopped being obstacles and became a language. Phoenix … Phoenix gave me the biggest equation I'd ever seen. I was so focused on solving it that I forgot to look at what the solution would cost."
Martha leans forward, her eyes bright. "I wish you could teach Lily some of those tricks. We've been struggling. She cries every time we open the workbook."
I shake my head, the reality of my situation settling back over me like a cold shroud. "Thorne has made it very clear that I am not to have any interaction with his daughter. He doesn't want me near her. And—I'm okay with that. I'm the person whoput the compound in her blood. I'm the monster in her story. I shouldn't be the one to teach her how to count."
"You're the one fixing what you did." Martha looks at me, maternal steel in her gaze. "That counts for something."
"Does it?" I reach for the next item in the basket. It's a small, pink hoodie. It smells like Lily. I fold it carefully, my heart doing a strange, painful stutter. I want to be the person who fixes it. "I don't want to be known for what I did. I want to be known for fixing it."
"I think we all want something like that. I know what you did. Colt doesn't hold back on what he thinks of you, but I also get a sense you're not inherently evil. You just got caught up in something beyond your control."
"Tell that to your son."
"Oh, dear, even I have my limits. You are nuclear hot when it comes to him. But, I think you'll find your way through it."
"Yeah, when he finally puts that bullet in my chest." I cringe as the words slip past my lips. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have …"
The door to the common room swings open.
Thorne stalks in, his face a mask of cold fury. He's vibrating with an intensity that tells me the briefing didn't go well. He stops dead when he sees me. His eyes drop to the stack of laundry, to the pink hoodie resting on top.
"What are you doing?" His voice is a low, dangerous growl.
I freeze. "I was just …"
"Get your hands off her clothes." He's across the room in three strides. He snatches the hoodie out of my hand as if it's on fire. "I told you. You don't touch her. You don't look at her. You don't exist in her world. Do you think I want your hands on the things she wears? You're a walking contamination."
"Colt, for heaven's sake." Martha stands, her posture rigid. "She was helping me. Sit down. You're behaving like a lunatic."
"She's the reason Lily is at risk!" Thorne roars, his face inches from mine. The heat of his rage, the sheer, crushing weight of his presence. "She doesn't get to play house. She doesn't get to be part of this."
He reaches out and grabs my upper arm, his fingers digging into the muscle, intended to haul me back toward the safe room.
"Let go of her, Colt." Martha's voice isn't loud, but it has the authority of a commanding officer. She walks around the table and places her hand over Thorne's.
"Let go of her and get your head screwed on straight." She locks eyes with him. "You're redlining, and you're taking it out on the only person in this building who's actually working on the problem. Julianna is a guest in my kitchen as long as she's helping me. Now, go to the gym, take a shower, or take a nap. Don't come back until you can behave like a man instead of a predator."
"I don't need a shower." His voice is a jagged, guttural rasp.
Thorne stares at his mother, his chest heaving. The silence is agonizing. The raw, sexual tension he named last night is warring with the hatred he's weaponized.
His hand remains clamped around my arm, the heat of his palm seeping through my sleeve. A branding iron of pure, unadulterated loathing. He's vibrating, a low-frequency hum of violence and repressed need that makes the air between us feel like it's about to combust.
For a second, I think he's going to ignore her. I think he's going to drag me out anyway.
