The muscles in Ben's arm tensed beneath her grasp. He might have pulled away if he felt like there was anywhere to go, but he was already leaning up against the wall and the hallway wasn't that big. He'd have to actually push her away to move, and she probably didn't deserve that. She was probably just trying to help, even if this felt suddenly like she was trying to trap him in another room with no air.

"Elliott wouldn't miss me," Ben pointed out, his voice tense. "He hardly even knows me. He doesn't need me."

Elliott had a father. He had a whole family, in all of these pictures surrounding Ben in the hallway, and this whole arrangement was temporary, anyway. She'd said he could keep visiting Elliott but Ben knew it couldn't last forever, and that sooner or later when Elliott got old enough to really understand it would all be over. If anyone was going to need him, it was Melody's child, not Elliott — and Melody didn't even know about the duel, and Ben wasn't going to tell her, because she would have been able to talk him out of it with a similar sentiment to this. But he wasn't going to die, so it wasn't going to matter. He wasn't going to die.