Their voices, this close, are like silk against the rawness of her heart, a soothing balm on an injury that still smokes from the heat. Quynh withdraws her hand from Nicky, takes half a step to Joe, catching a tuft of his beard between her fingers as she looks to Nicky this time.

"And what if I harm you," Quynh asks; there's a madness that chases her, that spurs her hand where before she would have stayed it. A darkness that lurks, that clouds forgiveness with a prospect that she has not yet had the strength to acknowledge completely - that she will not be able to forgive. That she will slice into the only thing that doesn't heal as quickly as their flesh and bones do.

"What then?"