Chapter 20: Blood

Keir found me behind the meadow stage at ten to six.

He wore the long coat and his gloves, and he kept a careful distance.

"I'm not going to ask you anything," he said.

"Good."

"Your mother came to you. I know what she offered. Ben told me."

"Ben talks too much."

"If you want to say what she asked you to say, say it."

His voice was level, and his hands weren't.

"Nobody on this ridge will think less of you. I won't."

"Keir."

"You owe me nothing. You never did. I won't stand in a crowd and watch you lose your family because of my sister."

I looked at him.

He believed it. That was the awful part.

He had spent six years watching families like mine close ranks.

He had built a whole show on the bet that I would too.

"You think I'm going to choose my blood," I said.

"I think you have the right to."

"Then you haven't been listening."

I stepped up and straightened his collar, and he flinched, and held still.

"Stand in the crowd, Keir. Don't ask me for anything."

"I won't."

"Good. Because I'm doing it anyway."

The stage was a plank platform with two canvas chairs and a camera on a boom.

The producer sat at the edge with her tablet, gray with no sleep.

Colson took the left chair in a clean blue jacket and his best smile.

I took the right.

Behind the lens, the meadow was full. Crew, judges, contestants, a hundred phones held up.

Beyond the crowd stood my mother.

Next to her, in a black coat and a hat, with his hands in his pockets, stood my father.

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