Chapter Thirty-Nine Little Cooks and Big Questions
Angel sat on the tiny pink stool in Leah's tree-house kitchen, hands resting on the table that was clearly built for someone half her size. The wood smelled like fresh paint and childhood, not like captivity or panic or being hunted by a man in black. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was home, sitting at the kids' little plastic dining set while they argued about who got the bigger piece of toast.
But she couldn't close her eyes for long. She was not home. This was not her dining set. Those were not her kids' voices. This was not even her country. This was a wooden castle in the sky built by the same man who put guards outside her bedroom door.
And yet here she was, letting his niece hand her a cup of imaginary peace tea.
"Angel! Look!" Leah sang, standing on her toes to reach the counter. "I make pancakes today!"
