Mea Culpa

Prologue

Molly

I'd started with the best intentions, honest.

Okay, so maybe you don't believe me. But it was true, at one point. I think. Right and wrong has gotten really hazy these days.

Life hinges on the choices we make. The good ones, the bad ones, and especially the foolish ones. I thought I'd once heard Harry say something to that effect. He was full of philosophical tidbits like that. Or maybe I was thinking of Confucius and just misattributing it to Harry. They were both wise and venerable and said shit that went way above my head. I doubted Harry would look as good in a Hanfu. I think that's what it's called. She hasn't been talking to me for a while, and she's the expert on these things.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So many choices were made that day. Mine. Harry's, my parents'. I should have argued with mom when she asked me to take out the trash. If I'd been a normal teenager and complained about my chores, maybe it wouldn't have played out the way it did. If I hadn't been so enamored of Harry Dresden, terrified of being embarrassed in front of him, I might have put up more resistance. If I hadn't humored little Harry and brought him outside with me, maybe I wouldn't have done it.

Choices, choices, choices. She'd have me believe that this was all predestined, and that our meeting was fated. I'm not sure I believe it. Why would I choose to go on like this, if I really thought that God intended it? That it wasn't my choice to be exactly where I am now?

I'd had choices. When the car came squealing down the highway past our house, I could have picked up Harry and gone inside. Chicago was a big city with deserved a reputation for crime. Even if the Carpenter house was situated in a good, white-bread suburban community, that didn't mean squat if someone started shooting. Something had flown out of the tinted window as the car sped past. Not a bullet. That spinning shape had been far more dangerous than a bullet. Something metal had sailed over the white fence posts and had landed directly in our yard.

By the time my brain had pieced together what I was seeing, little Harry was already toddling toward it, chubby hands outstretched to seize the metal that glinted darkly in the sprigs of bright green grass that made up the yard. That moment is frozen forever in my head. I remember how painfully sharp my heartbeat had felt inside of my chest, how bile had scalded my throat. I replay it over and over in my mind. Maybe I could have seized him, pulled him away. He was only two, and barely more than thirty pounds. That could have been my choice.

I could have shouted a warning, frozen him to the spot with the terror in my voice. That had been a choice too.

But I didn't. My feet had carried me forward, acting on a fierce protective instinct to preserve my little brother's life. Sunlight glinted innocently off of the raised sigil, looking for all the world like an abandoned, antique coin. I made my choice with the best of intentions, beating my little brother by only seconds. His hand came down on mine, pudgy fingers curling around my pinky with a whine.

And my hand made contact with a blackened Denarius.