YASMINE
That night, Yasmine lay awake for hours, watching the starlight pour in the window and thinking about the impossible decision in front of her.
Jax and Pia had enjoyed their Tai Chi lesson. There were lots of jokes and giggles as they tried to master stretches and toppled over.
But by the end of the evening, she was proud to see them both stretching and balancing in peaceful silence.
And Pia had gone to bed calmly, in spite of the day’s events.
Yasmine loved spending that time with the kids, and it felt like they liked being with her, too.
She wanted to help them become more comfortable in their roles as the children of a world leader. She was even beginning to think she already had some of the tools to do so, and the sincere desire to pick up the rest.
For now, she was glad she had shared her own comfort activity with the two of them. Their lives in the spotlight would be more stressful than most kids would ever know. They could use all the help they could get relaxing.
They might need more help than that…
She couldn’t get the thought of the threat Mrs. Slaite had mentioned out of her head.
Slaite was right, of course. If the kids were really in physical danger, the more people around them with combat experience, the better.
But where did that leave Yasmine?
On the one hand, she couldn’t imagine handing off her charges to a random nanny from the agency - someone who had no idea how to protect a target, or even how to be properly observant during times of heightened danger.
On the other, even though she could anticipate and analyze a threat much more quickly and efficiently than the average person, she wasn’t sure how she would react if it ever came to that.
She tried to picture herself springing into action when danger arose. Would she be able to do what had to be done?
Or would her past continue to haunt her?
Closing her eyes, she imagined the sounds of broken glass, an intruder entering the palace, and footsteps in the bedroom hallway on the way to the children.
She could feel herself launching out of bed, her feet hitting the cold marble floor, sprinting to the hallway to dive into the fray.
But when she reached the corridor in her mind, all she could see was the glowing yellow eyes of a young boy, fading into darkness.