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tsarisfanfiction · 3 months ago

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A Father's Duty

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Gen Genre: Family, Angst Characters: Apollo, Zeus, Cabin Seven Apollo loves his children. He also loves his father. @toapril-official is back for another year! My life is pretty busy this year but I'm still going to try and get all 30 days done - I've gone into it with a plan this year, so maybe that'll help... Anyway, here's TOApril day 1 - Tumbling Love. Zeus' parenting is its own warning, I think.

The first thing Apollo noticed as he approached Camp Half Blood was the shrieking. High pitched shrieks, ones that could only come from children, and if he hurried his pace a little – he had chosen to arrive quietly this time, no sun chariot landing by the lake, no flash of light as a god materialised, just a good, mortal-fashioned stroll through the surrounding woods towards the archway proclaiming the name of the camp for all those who could see it – then that was no-one’s business but his own.

Shrieks, like all noises, came in a variety of fashions, and while Apollo had seen mortals and immortals alike react in panic at all types, it was easy for him to identify these shrieks as shrieks of laughter. Demigods shrieking in laughter, mostly the younger ones with their higher pitched voices but there were some deeper, older voices tangled in as well.

And they were close.

He crested Half-Blood Hill, brushing past Peleus and not sparing the golden fleece a single glance, nor Thalia’s old pine tree, to see what, exactly, the demigods were up to that made them so raucous – not that Apollo minded the noise. The opposite, in fact – he loved hearing the demigods so carefree.

He loved seeing it, too.

The harpies were no doubt watching on somewhere in resignation as their charges added more work to their already never-ending list of cleaning chores to keep the camp safe and hygienic, but to Apollo the sight of green-stained t-shirts, and pants, and even skin, was a beautiful sight.

Demigods were still children, not magically older or more mature than their mortal peers even if their parentage and the world it brought them into forced them into something more aware aged them before their time because if it didn’t it would kill them, and seeing them act like it always settled something in Apollo’s essence. He wasn’t the god of children, or youth – Hebe would have several unpleasant things to say if he so much as suggested he was - but he was their protector, the protector of not just the young but of their youth.

It was a role he kept failing at, with demigods, as the world kept pushing and pushing. This camp was the closest he could come to succeeding at it and its success was intermittent at best.

Right now, it seemed like it was succeeding.

Merida giggled as she pushed her twin, who yelped as he overbalanced and grabbed at her in turn as he fell, dragging her down with her. They rolled down the hill in a mess of limbs and squawking, yelling at each other and humour surrounding them as they went. A little further along the hill, Kayla threw herself down with abandon, closely followed by Jerry, while Yan took the more sensible approach of laying down before starting to roll. Gracie was talking quietly with Austin, but both of them were also grass-stained, so they just seemed to be taking a break from the time honoured tradition of children rolling down hills for no reason other than because they could, and because it was fun.

Apollo loved the sight.

More heads came back into view, Will with his arm around Raphael and blond hair threaded through with glimpses of green, the two boys laughing. Behind them, Alice’s make-up was smeared but she didn’t seem to notice as she goaded Sam into pulling her up the hill, while Emma hung onto her own waist to get dragged up.

None of them noticed him, but that was by design as he faded into the background, content for the moment to watch them play, tumbling down the hill again and again and feeling his essence thrum with pure love.

There was nothing quite like loving his children. Nothing like being a father to these innocent, battered but not broken demigods. Apollo loved being a father, always had done even if he usually looked too young to be one, by mortal standards.

He didn’t understand the people who didn’t.

Apollo watched his children play, unaware of their audience, and considered joining them, letting his presence be known. It had been a little while since he’d last dropped by in person, even if he’d spoken with most of them in their dreams the past couple of evenings.

The scent of ozone, sprites of static brushing against his essence, stopped him before he could make a move.

“You should not be here,” his own father said, sparking into existence. For Zeus, it was an unusually subtle display of his presence, but Apollo supposed he didn’t want the demigods to notice he’d deigned to make his way into their camp, even if it was only the very fringes of it, standing underneath the boughs of the tree he had once created to prevent his daughter dying entirely. Apollo was glad of that, too - he didn’t want his children, or any other demigods, realising Zeus was there, either.

It was bad enough that they were in Zeus’ presence, catching his attention, in the first place. Apollo supposed he hadn’t been subtle enough in his own approach, not if his father had noticed.

Zeus wasn’t looking at his children, though. Not yet, at least. Instead, his piercing blue eyes were focused on Apollo himself, which was never a comfortable position to find himself in, but it was better than it being his children. He wasn’t foolish or naive enough to think that his father wasn’t fully aware of the demigods, and whose children they were, though.

His father didn’t look as stern as Apollo expected him to be, when he met the older god’s gaze with his own, trying to minimise Zeus’ reasons to look to his children.

It was to no avail. He’d barely made eye contact when Zeus looked away, looking instead at the children who continued to play, oblivious to their grandfather’s presence. Apollo stifled Lester’s instinct to swallow, to show nervousness.

“Although,” Zeus continued, as though there had been no pause, not giving Apollo time to scramble to come up with an answer that would both appease his father and not put his children in more danger than they already were, “it is a father’s prerogative to watch over his children.”

There had never really been a hope that Zeus wouldn’t know exactly who he was looking at.

Those bright blue eyes, so much like Jason’s except Jason had been a mortal and his father was the king of the gods with windows to an essence of an eternal storm, whirling and flashing for millennia, much like the storm on the surface of the planet named for his Roman form, glanced back at Apollo again, and he felt seen in a way he didn’t want to be, not by this god, of all beings.

“In that, we are not so different, you and I,” his father commented, and Apollo had to fight to supress the unease that rippled through his essence. ��Watching over our children, guiding them… making sure they take the right path, against all other temptations. Those are a father’s duty.”

“I agree.” It wasn’t something Apollo could deny, wasn’t something he’d argue with his father about, not when his children were right there.

Zeus smiled, and it made him look benevolent. Kind. The way Apollo remembered him from his youth, before he learnt that storms were unpredictable and it didn’t matter how pretty the sky was when the lightning struck. He didn’t know why Zeus was showing him those same pretty skies now.

It felt like a warning.

“I cannot stop you from being a father,” the older god told him, “but you must remember, Apollo, that demigods are mortal. They are not gods. Their lives flicker for less than a century before they disappear forever.”

That, felt like a threat.

“I know, Father,” he said, not even risking a glance towards the slope of the hill, although it didn’t stop him being aware of Kayla throwing herself back down again, and the shrieks of laughter that accompanied it.

“A father guides, but he knows when to step back,” Zeus said, as though he hadn’t said anything at all. “Remember that, too, my son. Do not linger - and I am sure I do not have to remind you of the Laws.”

He disappeared in another crackle of ozone, before Apollo could even digest the words, but Apollo was under no illusions that he was still being watched. There could be no visiting his children today, not now.

Not while Zeus was watching… and Zeus was always watching.

Watching, and judging, ready to correct his children’s paths if they strayed. Apollo watched Gracie push Austin down the hill and surprised a wince as he recalled falling himself, no doubt pushed by his father for all he still didn’t remember it.

He tried to imagine doing that to his own children, remembered Hal and the way he’d had to give him a gentle push before Zeus interceded and pushed harder, tried to imagine pushing any of them hard of his own volition. He failed.

Guiding his children? Yes. But he couldn’t conceive of doing to his children what his father had done to him. Not even his immortal ones, the ones that wouldn’t flicker and fade within a century. He couldn’t imagine how Zeus had done it.

Sometimes, it made him want to hate his father. Olympus knew Zeus’ treatment of him wasn’t right, that the Apollo of old, before the Ancient Laws and his own father’s threats of punishment, would’ve punished parents for if they’d done it to their children. Apollo didn’t know if Zeus loved him, any more. He thought he had done, once upon a time, but now? Now, it was difficult to tell.

Now, it didn’t matter. Zeus could love him with the strength of a thousand suns and it wouldn’t change anything, because his actions and words were angled to control, to punish, to hurt, regardless of the intent behind them.

The same way, it didn’t matter that Apollo still loved Zeus, that even now, standing in the shelter of Thalia’s tree and watching the children that his father may or may not have just subtly threatened, he couldn’t take back the centuries of love that he’d poured into his father. He feared him, distrusted him, at times resented him… but he still loved him.

He always would, he knew, and it felt like a betrayal to his own children that he could love the god that would snuff their lives out with a single thunderbolt if the mood struck him – the god that had done that exact same thing before. It felt like he shouldn’t love them both, but he did.

It didn’t matter, though. It didn’t change anything. Apollo had loved Commodus – still, deep inside his essence, loved him despite everything he’d done. That hadn’t stopped him from killing him twice; if anything, it had spurred him on to end him with his own hands, rather than let anyone else take his life.

Loving his father wouldn’t stop him from doing what he needed to do. Maybe he couldn’t stop loving him, but he could still choose his children over him.

His father wouldn’t hurt his children. Not again.

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tsarisfanfiction · 2 months ago

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Truth Comes Out of His Well (Chapter 31)

Fandom: Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rating: Teen Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Family Characters: Lee Fletcher, Kronos, Apollo, Apollo Cabin (and many more) As always, @stereden is responsible for the accompanying podfic! Previous chapters are being filled in slowly; I’ll make a note when the gap is gone! This chapter comes with a warning for a brief scene featuring suicide ideation by a depressed character. << Chapter 30 Listen to chapter 31 on AO3

Lee discovered the problem with borrowing Michael’s bow as soon as he and Tris returned to the foyer of the Empire State Building and he saw the grip Kayla had on it. He didn’t even have to ask to know that there was no way the girl was going to give him her favourite brother’s prized bow just because he said Michael had said he could use it.

The only person that was going to convince her would be Michael himself.

“Kayla,” he called, walking over to her. She turned sharply, eyeing him suspiciously. “Michael’s awake.”

Immediately, her eyes went large and hopeful, and Lee directed her to the elevator so she could see him for herself. Michael could take care of the rest – he’d see her still holding his bow and make sure it ended up in Lee’s hands before the battle started.

Then, he went to seek Joy and Robyn out, because they had to divide their cabin in two and he had some ideas, but he didn’t know where all of the younger ones would be best suited. His sisters would know that better.

“We need Kayla down here,” Robyn said when he got the three of them into a huddle, leaving Tris and the others to keep an eye on the injured. She didn’t seem at all happy about it, though. “I know she’s only eleven, but with Michael and Nathan down, she is our best archer. She’ll give Michael a run for his money in a few years without a doubt.”

Joy nodded, although she was clearly equally unhappy about it. Lee had been hoping otherwise, but if he was honest, he’d already known Kayla was good – she even had Clarisse’s praise, as veiled as it was, and that wasn’t easy to get.

“Sally needs to go up,” he said, and neither of them protested that. Sally wasn’t the best healer either – her skills were firmly in poetry with not much branching out into either healing or combat – but she could keep Will company and fetch and carry for him if nothing else. “How about Austin?”

“Also a better fighter than a healer,” Robyn said. “I’d like to put him out of the way with Will and Sally but I don’t think we can justify it.” She eyed him. “Honestly, you should be up there, Lee.”

Lee shook his head. “I’m fighting,” he said. “Michael’s lending me his bow.”

“That’s why you sent her to see him,” Joy noted, the smile on her face shining in amusement as she signed. Lee shrugged. He was not above using siblings against each other to manipulate them, and both sisters had been campers long enough to know that. Kayla would no doubt figure it out quickly, too.

“Anyone else we can spare?” he asked hopefully, and tried not to be too dejected when they both shook their heads in tandem. He’d expected that answer, having gone through the youngest two individually.

“Not injured enough to excuse it, and we do need healers down here in the first instance,” Robyn grumbled. “I want Elias on healing before fighting where possible, though.”

Joy nodded, and Lee wasn’t going to argue.

“So – primary fighters,” he said. “Me, Kayla, you-” he gestured to Joy. “Who else?”

“Sam,” Joy signed, a sign he didn’t recognise before finger-spelling their brother’s name out. She hadn’t known Sam long enough to determine a name sign for him the last time they’d spoken about him, last year – before the battle in camp. Lee quickly added the sign to his mental bank of name signs.

“And Austin,” Robyn finished. “He’s not picking up healing very quickly. Why aren’t you putting yourself as a healer, Lee?”

He grimaced. “I’m still running on empty on that front,” he admitted. “Turns out we’re solar powered enough that being cut off from the sun for a year did a number on my healing. I can do something in a pinch, but that’s going to have to be assumed a last resort that might not work properly.”

Both of them looked furious. Robyn was almost spitting as she forced out her next words.

“So. Healers.” She gestured to herself. “I’m in charge. Alice and Elias will be able to keep up with battle triage and healing, too. How’s Tris right now?”

“Stronger than me but weaker than he could be,” Lee admitted. “But keep him in your team. He can still triage no problem, at least.”

“So could you,” Robyn noted. “You don’t need energy for that, and you’re the most experienced of all of us.”

She had a point but Lee still shook his head. “We need two leaders down here,” he said, with an apologetic look at Joy, who would be leading the archers, if Lee wasn’t barging in. She waved him off – they both knew that she’d have to keep using her voice in battle, especially with her hands full of bow, and it would be difficult for her.

“The Ares kids had better be bringing you some spare armour,” she signed, though, and the thought hadn’t occurred to Lee. Neither he nor Clarisse had mentioned armour or weapons to Ellis when he’d called. He shrugged and she frowned.

“You need something,” she insisted, tapping at his chest, which also drew his attention to the fact that he was still in a purple t-shirt, unlike everyone else’s orange, beneath their armour.

“I’ll figure something out before the fighting starts,” he said. “Also – where’s Michael’s quiver? I know he’s out of arrows but I’ll need something.”

Both girls hesitated and glanced at each other, before Robyn groaned. “Back at the hotel,” she said. “We took his and Nathan’s off of them and didn’t bother to bring them with us, given they’re not going to be fighting.”

“Okay,” Lee sighed. “I’ll go-”

Two hands latched onto his arms firmly, and both his sisters glared at him.

“You will not,” Joy signed one handed, the negative a harsh movement.

“Sam!” Robyn yelled, and their younger brother hurried over to them. “Go back to the hotel, we need all the discarded quivers. Take someone with you.”

Lee did not want his younger siblings going out in such a small group, but Sam nodded and disappeared, snagging Alice and Elias in the process. Austin tried to follow, but Sally held him back and he huffed, sitting down on the floor and fiddling with his saxophone instead.

“You need to rest, if you’re insisting on fighting tonight,” Robyn told Lee firmly. “And let me see those wrists of yours. Michael’s bow is no joke and you haven’t drawn a bow in too long.” He didn’t fight her as she unravelled Chris’ neat bandaging and sang a healing song over each wrist. Her healing was far more powerful than Lee remembered it being, but it did what it needed to. The bruising and welts barely changed, but he could feel the bones and muscles strengthening.

It was almost more than he knew Will could do, and Robyn wasn’t that good. From the glance she sent the sun, she knew it, too.

Well, neither of them were going to complain if Apollo decided to bolster their healing for the war. Nor would anyone else. Lee sent their father a silent prayer of thanks.

They separated. Robyn sought out Sally and sent her up to Olympus, complete with instructions to get Kayla to come back before dark, before snagging Tris and taking him over to the area of the foyer she had commandeered as the triage centre. Lee and Joy only had Austin to round up for the moment, but that was okay, because Lee needed to know what his little brother could do.

Austin didn’t have a bow, just the saxophone. But he did also have a quiver of darts tucked away, and at some coaxing revealed a blowpipe hiding inside the saxophone.

“Dad gave it to me!” he proclaimed, gesturing at the saxophone as a whole. “I have another one for playing, but this one…” He proceeded to explain all of the weird and wonderful features the dubbed combat saxophone had hidden inside it. A lot of them weren’t actually the most useful for head on fighting, but between the blowpipe and the saxophone, Austin had enough that Lee was at least as confident as he could be that the younger boy would be able to keep himself alive whilst taking down a couple of monsters, and that was by far the most important thing.

Lee was not planning on losing any siblings today. If possible, he didn’t want to lose anyone at all, but he was uncomfortably aware that it was war, and war didn’t tend to end without casualties.

They were trying not to kill the opposing demigods, he’d discovered, and while he didn’t want them dead, he was uncomfortably aware that at least some of Kronos’ demigods had no such qualms, which put them at an automatic disadvantage. It was much, much harder to put someone down and keep them there without killing them.

Over the afternoon, more and more demigods trickled in. The trio that had gone out to retrieve the abandoned quivers were quick to return, and Joy had snagged Sam while the other two were directed towards Robyn and Tris. Lee had to loosen the straps on Michael’s quiver before it would fit around his waist snugly; Nathan’s quiver would have fit him better without the adjustments, but it was also bloody, and given his brother’s reaction when he’d seen him earlier, he didn’t think it was right to use his.

Michael, at least, had given permission to use his bow, and Lee could extrapolate that out to his quiver without feeling guilty about it.

Kayla finally came back down from Olympus a couple of hours later, when most of the demigods had arrived and were starting to trap the area. The Hephaestus campers were working closely with the Hermes kids to make some of the roads in the vicinity all but impassable, so they could focus their forces on the section that was easier to hold.

“Michael said to give you this,” she said, and she clearly didn’t like it, but she did hold out Michael’s bow to Lee, who accepted it gratefully. “Don’t damage it. He got it from Dad.”

Lee knew that. It had caused a bit of a stir in the cabin at the time, when Michael had woken up one morning with a bow in his arms and no inclination to let anyone else near it. It had taken them several weeks to get him to actually keep it in the armoury where it was supposed to be – Lee was certain that Chiron had known about the bow being kept in the cabin despite the no bows in cabins rule, but the centaur had never confronted them about it. Lee wasn’t actually sure if anyone outside of the cabin knew it was a godly gift – Michael didn’t advertise it.

Even now, years later and far less prickly towards his siblings than he’d been when he was eleven, Michael was still protective of his bow. There were very few people allowed to hold it, and even less allowed to shoot it. Lee hadn’t been in the latter category before, and appreciated his brother extending it to include him for the war.

“I know,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

There was always a risk of weapons breaking, even ones gifted by gods – Lee remembered when Clarisse’s first spear had broken, the combination of her shock that it could, and her fear that Ares would be angry about it. She’d become a lot more protective of the next one she’d received. But as a general rule, weapons from the gods tended to be hardier, and more difficult to break.

Lee had no intention of testing just how much Michael’s bow could take.

He tested the weight of it, even though there wasn’t really any need. The bow had been Michael’s from eleven to sixteen, and hopefully for many more years to come, and had adapted to what Michael could comfortably draw over the years. Lee wasn’t Michael, but it still drew back smoothly, feeling the same weight as his own bow. He held it at full draw long enough for his arms to start to shake, mostly to test his own endurance as well as the bow’s settled weight, before releasing the tension slowly, very aware of Kayla’s judgemental look.

She was testing him, making sure she could trust him with Michael’s bow, and that wasn’t really her call to make but Lee wasn’t going to call her out on it. He was curious about her own background, though, because she was clearly an experienced archer. She also used a modern recurve, rather than any of the more traditional unsighted bows favoured by most of the cabin, and that implied formal training before camp, in a mortal setting.

“When did you start shooting?” he asked her as he settled Michael’s bow on his back, secure and out of the way for the moment.

She shrugged at him. “Don’t remember,” she said. “Da’s an archery coach.”

It took Lee a moment to parse the words and realise that she had to be one of the demigods with two parents of the same gender. They weren’t common, but they weren’t unheard of, either. He’d had a few siblings with two dads before, although Kayla was the only one in camp right then.

“That explains a lot,” he said. “You’re good.”

“I know,” she said, puffing her chest out with no sense of modesty at all. “I’m going to be better than Michael one day.”

Lee didn’t think Michael was planning on letting his superiority be stripped away quite that easily, but he also thought that Michael recognised that she might – otherwise he’d be treating her more like Nathan, who’d always said that and been laughed off because he was good but Michael was better. If Michael had laughed Kayla off, he didn’t think she’d be so attached to him.

“Michael’s the best archer I know,” he said neutrally, instead of taking sides. “Did you know he can even outshoot some of Lady Artemis’ Hunters?” Not all of them, of course – the blessing of a goddess and centuries of archery experience did put several of them in a different league entirely – but the younger ones he had definitely outshot before. Lee remembered the last time it happened.

He also remembered the resulting carnage, because Michael had not been a graceful victor and the Hunters hadn’t taken kindly to it. Never let it be said that Michael couldn’t cause a lot of chaos with his attitude sometimes, and it wasn’t always with Clarisse.

“Are they that good?” Kayla sniffed, and Lee was glad that none of the girls in question were in earshot right then, because that would’ve sparked its own fight if they had been.

“They’re very good,” Lee said firmly. “They all have Lady Artemis’ direct blessing.”

He recognised that look on Kayla’s face. It was the same one that Michael pulled when he sensed a challenge.

“Why don’t we arrange another competition after the war?” he said pointedly, knowing that Kayla wasn’t going to settle until she’d tried to outshoot the Hunters, but also that trying to outshoot them in a war would be a very, very bad idea. “Michael would love another go at them, too.”

That got her to pause, although she squinted at him suspiciously. “Fine,” she said mulishly. “After the war.”

Hopefully he could sort something light-hearted out with Thalia before Kayla tried to issue any challenges herself. Not all of the Hunters were automatically anti-campers, it would just be a case of working with Thalia on the topic.

While the Hunters hadn’t made an appearance, the rest of the campers seemed to have arrived, and Lee left Kayla under Joy’s watch, asking both of them to divvy up whatever arrows they had left that were useable between those of them that weren’t in Olympus. The fighters would need more than the healers, but all of them needed at least some.

Clarisse was prowling around just outside the door, glowering up at the sky as the sun got lower, past the tops of the highest buildings. It wouldn’t be long before sundown, and Kronos’ attack, and the Ares cabin hadn’t arrived yet. Chris was leaning against the doorway, watching her but not intercepting her movement.

Maybe Lee should do the same, but he moved to join her instead.

“You need some fucking armour,” Clarisse greeted him as he fell into step next to her. “And some arrows.” Her eyes flickered to the quiver on his hip, one that Lee knew she recognised. Michael had used the same one for years.

“The cabin are redistributing what we’ve got left at the moment,” Lee told her. “I’ll have arrows soon.”

She huffed. “That’s the problem with you archers,” she muttered, not for the first time and no doubt not for the last, either. It never failed to wind Michael up, but Lee could see her point – it was frustrating when they ran out of ammunition, but until the war, it had never been a problem. Not in the safety of camp. “The bastard really isn’t fighting?”

Her eyes were on Michael’s bow now, and she didn’t look comfortable about it.

“Not tonight,” Lee said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to keep him back longer than that, though. Broken ribs or no.”

“Bastard heals fast,” Clarisse acknowledged. She looked away from Lee and his borrowed weapons, scanning the streets instead – searching for her siblings.

Lee understood. He was searching, too. If Silena had found a way to get rid of them, despite them being on guard, then they were in trouble. It was no exaggeration to say that they needed the Ares cabin to bolster their front line if they were going to hold the block overnight – or even just the building itself.

Silver flickered in the corner of his eye, and a familiar face appeared in front of them, just out of range of Clarisse’s spear.

With the recent revelation that some of the Hunters were his sisters, Phoebe was pretty much at the top of Lee’s suspect list. The red-haired Hunter had been a Hunter for as long as he’d been a camper, and he was certain that she’d seen hundreds, if not thousands, of years. She was high enough up the hierarchy without being openly special that it would make sense.

She also was particularly dismissive of camp, and the Apollo cabin in particular. She and Michael got into howling arguments that turned into fights, and separating them was hard.

Her eyes lingered on Lee for a moment, before she focused on Clarisse.

“Thalia sent me to alert you,” she said. “Your cabin reached the Plaza Hotel and are now on the way here. Silena is leading them.”

Clarisse’s prowling came to a halt, and a satisfied glint lit up in her eye. “Good,” she said, and Lee was very glad he wasn’t her enemy right then. She turned her head back to Chris, who was in sight and just about earshot. “Warn Drew!”

That was going to get messy, quickly.

Phoebe disappeared again, blending into the cityscape unfairly well for someone wearing silver, as Clarisse then turned to Lee.

“Do you want to still be here when they get here?” she asked him, and that was the question. Silena didn’t know that she’d been exposed, and if she didn’t see him or Tris, she wouldn’t have any reason to – until Drew lashed out, which wouldn’t take any time at all.

He didn’t really want to see that fight, and he didn’t really want to see Silena ever again.

There would be no way to avoid her, though. It would be better, in the long run, to get the confrontation over with now, before the fighting. Before a distraction got someone killed.

He and Silena had already caused one death between them, and that was one death too many. Lee wouldn’t let there be another.

“No,” he admitted. “But I’m staying anyway.”

She clasped his shoulder firmly. “I’m with you,” she said.

Chapter 32>>>

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