King would despise me if he knew what we’d done, what I’d let them become. I should have killed her like I wanted, kept them from her, kept myself from having to admit this truth about them—that I knew what they’d do to Harper when I finally let them have her after six months of denying them. It was both their reward for respecting my previous claim and her punishment for betrayal. But I can’t remember when they became the kind of people whose attention is a punishment.
