He was bracing to be sent, the way he had braced to be sent ten times before, and offering to hold the door himself so that at least this once it would not take him by surprise.”

My fork slipped out of my fingers.

My stomach dropped through the floor.

Every warning I had been given four months and a lifetime ago came rushing back at once — the troubled boy, the chaos, the thing everyone had promised was coming.

I pushed it all down and made my voice as steady and open as I could.

Everything in me wanted to reassure him before he even spoke, to head off whatever was coming with a flood of it’s-okay and nothing-you-could-say.

But the training had taught me better, and so had the months with him.