I turned back to the dancing lights on the movie screen and told the others, ‘Things just got a lot worse. I’m still going. None of you have to come with me. I don’t expect you to—’ Before I finished speaking, Charity, Murphy, and Thomas stepped up to stand beside me. A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family. And they were my heroes.
