Carver bites back the immediate denials. The worst part is that he’s a liar now, because he can’t say Bossie’s wrong. All of those things are true. All of those things have a cost—an awful goddamn cost.

“I know you did,” he agrees quietly. He and Leah had known there’d be trouble after Bossie started wailing so loud he alerted the whole compound. But they’d thought they could smooth it over. Keep Bossie out of Pope’s line of sight until things calmed down.

They’d been wrong.

“You’ll earn it back,” he says instead, desperately reaching for something to say. Anything. “But that’s later. This is right now and I need you to focus. You hurt anywhere else?”