My life being my own again, that sounded good. I thought about being just me, as Jean-Claude said, just me in my own skin. Just me, alone, again. Alone again. I had a moment of absolutely joyous nostalgia for my life before I'd acquired so many people. To come home to an empty house didn't seem awful, it seemed relaxing.

Micah touched my face, turned me to look at him. I could see him clearly, finally. His kitty-cat eyes were so serious. "Nothing that is happening is worth dying over, Anita, please."

I thought he meant Damian, then realized he didn't. I wasn't cold just because I was trying to break the triumvirate. There was only one way to be free. One of us had to die. Could I break free? Maybe. Would I die trying? Maybe. The thought should have scared me, but it didn't. And that scared me. I know it sounds stupid, but it didn't scare me to think I might die, but it did scare me not to be scared. Stupid, but true.

I had to do better than this, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I had to do better than this.

Richard hugged me from behind, bending all that six-feet-plus of warmth and muscle around me. "Please, Anita, don't do this." His breath was so warm, almost hot, against my hair.

I looked up at him, from inches away. His eyes were perfectly brown, warm, and full of so much emotion. "You'd be free."

He shook his head, his eyes shiny. "I don't want to be free that badly."

"Don't you?" I asked.

"No, this price is too high. Don't leave me, not like this." He held me close, his hair long enough now that it tickled along my face. I buried my face in the warm, sweet scent of his neck, but I knew it was a lie.

I cuddled against him, as tight and close as I could. I buried myself against the warmth and strength of him, and it still felt wonderful. It still felt so right, but I knew it wasn't. We were both too stubborn for it to work.

I was crying again, and wasn't sure why. Crying my regrets out against the warmth of Richard's neck. The coulda-beens, shoulda-beens, woulda-beens. I wrapped myself around him, legs, arms, all of it, and clung to him, clung to him and cried.

A hand stroked the back of my hair, and a voice said, "Ma petite, ma petite, drop these shields, let us inside again."

I turned my head to look at him while I clung to Richard. I stared up into that face, those midnight-blue eyes. His hand stroked along the edge of my face, and it wasn't enough. Whatever I'd done to myself, I'd walled myself up tight. Since I hadn't tried to cut myself off on purpose, I didn't know how to undo what I'd done. How do you undo an accident?