“I’m sure she’s fine,” Christian says after I hang up. “Billy can take care of herself.”
I think about the blood. The sound of Olivia’s body hitting the stage.
“It’s okay, Clara,” Christian murmurs. “We’re safe.”
I turn to look out the window. We’re passing a ridge full of wind turbines: tall white windmills, their propellers whirling round and round, cutting the air. The clouds leave shadows as they move between the sun and the earth, like dark creatures roaming the land.
Will we ever be safe again? I wonder.
Christian takes one hand off the wheel and reaches for mine. He rubs his thumb across my knuckles, and it’s supposed to comfort me the way it always does. It’s supposed to fill me with his strength.
But all I feel is weak.
15
PLAYING HOUSE
The place I pointed to on the map ends up being Lincoln, Nebraska. When we get there, we find a hotel. The clerk at the front desk, a round, kind-looking woman in her late fifties, smiles at us like we’re a married couple and leans over the desk to get a peek at Web.
“Oh my, he’s a tiny one,” she says. “How old?”
“Nine days,” I answer, suddenly nervous, and her expression clearly reflects that she thinks nine days is too soon for me to be traveling with a baby, but that’s not her business.
“We’re visiting the in-laws,” Christian says, putting his arm around my waist and pulling me to him like he can’t stand for us to be six inches apart. “It’s not the best arrangement, staying in a hotel, but what can we do? She doesn’t get along with my mother.”
How easily he jumps into this role: devoted husband, sleep-deprived father.
“Believe me, I understand,” says the lady almost slyly. “We have those rolling port-a-cribs. Do you need one?”
“Yes, thank you. You’re a lifesaver,” he answers, and I swear she blushes when he turns on that high-wattage smile of his. He keeps his arm around me as we walk out of the lobby, but as we wait for the elevator, his face goes grim again.
We get Web settled in the port-a-crib next to the bed, and he goes right back to sleep. I guess babies sleep a lot at his age. I 411 the number for the pizza place in Mountain View, hoping to talk to Jeffrey, although who knows what I would say to him. How do you break it to your brother that his girlfriend’s a homicidal black-winged Triplare and she’s just vowed to kill me?
“He’s not here,” Jake says when I ask for Jeffrey. “It’s his day off.”
“Well, can you tell him to call me?” I say, and he makes a noncommittal noise and hangs up.
I don’t know what else to do.
Christian insists that I take the first shower. I stand under the scalding spray and scrub my skin until it’s raw, getting off the last of Olivia’s blood. As I stand in front of the steam-wiped mirror combing out my hair, my own face seems to accuse me.
Weak.
You didn’t try to save Anna, or to stop them from taking Angela. You didn’t even try.
Coward.
You spent all these hours training to use a glory sword, because your father told you that you’d need it, but when the moment came, you couldn’t even draw it.
Gutless.
I grip the comb so hard my knuckles turn white. I don’t meet my eyes again until my hair is done.
When I open the door, Christian is sitting cross-legged on the single queen bed, staring at the painting on the wall, a picture of a large white bird with long legs and a stripe of red on the top of its head, spreading its wings, its toes touching the water, although I can’t be sure whether it’s taking off or touching down.
Failure, I think, remembering my inability to so much as conjure my wings at the Garter. Even at something as simple as flying. I’ve failed.