PENNY POV
The words started somewhere deep inside me and spread outward, crawling through my ribs, my throat, my skull.
No.
“He said they were heading into No Man’s Land.”
My hand flew to Liam’s arm because my knees forgot what they were for.
His fingers closed around my wrist immediately, warm and hard and trembling just enough that I knew he had heard it too.
“He wanted to chase them,” Marcellus said.
Daddy’s face had gone completely blank.
That was worse than anger.
Mom looked ready to rip the staircase from the wall and beat him with it until the truth fell out.
Pops Derrick did not blink.
“I told him not to go,” Marcellus said.
Silence.
Pure silence.
Then Mom laughed.
It was a horrible sound.
The kind of laugh that did not belong to humor at all. The kind of laugh that
