"You think I only want you here because I feel responsible for you," I said.
"Don't you?"
I thought about it honestly.
"Some," I said. "Some of what keeps me extending the welcome is responsibility. Some of it is guilt — not for what happened between us, for the childhood. For the ways we were both failed by the same systems and responded to it differently." I held her gaze. "But some of it is also that you are one of the three people from before Ashveil who exist in the story of who I am. And I'd rather you exist in my life as someone who's where they actually want to be."
She looked at me.
"Tell them no," I said. "This specific family, this specific offer — tell them no and give me the communication logs and let Mitch trace the approach back through Daven's intelligence. That's what
