Chapter Thirteen
Two days later, I have examined every book, essay, and newspaper I can find in Rogen Tower. None of them mention what I’m looking for: Twig City. I wonder how many others from this world know its name or even that it exists. I am tempted to ask Gus. I’ve seen him only twice since the night I heard Daniel and the redhead—Melanie—say that he is an Imitation. A product, as they call it.
Both times he is the same old Gus, grouchy and silent. His examiners would be proud of the way he’s integrated himself as his Authentic. He seems completely immersed in his role. Because of that, I can’t bring myself to give away what I know. About him. Or Senator Ryan. Or his son.
One thing is clear. Titus has no idea it is Daniel trying to kill me. And I have no idea if he’ll even believe me if I tell him. Or if I want him to. The redhead’s words replay in my mind so many times, they are imprinted on the inside of my eyelids: or the others we’ve got stashed.
I go back to what the stranger in the study said to Titus, about being disturbed by all of the disappearances. And I think he must mean Imitations are disappearing. Being taken. By Daniel, it looks like. The idea of Imitations being held against their will somewhere in this city gives me enough pause that I don’t tell Titus what I know. Not all of it. And then I remember the fresh wound on Anna’s arm. Her missing GPS. Her complete willingness to be aligned with Melanie.
Deep down, I know my reticence is due to one thing. Would I be better off letting Daniel and Melanie have me? I don’t have an answer for that yet.
The only reason I went forward with the story of my attack was for Obadiah. By the time I arrived at the coatroom to check on him, he’d already woken and notified security. The police were called—the first time I’d seen a legitimate police officer since arriving at Rogen Tower—and an official report made. Titus showed up and swept me away before I could give more than a preliminary statement, shushing me all the way to the car.
Once inside, I gave him an edited version of events, careful to leave out all mention of Annalyn being Anna or the fact that Daniel was there, a veritable string-puller. When I mentioned Melanie, Titus’s face went red and he pressed his lips together so tightly they turned white. He hasn’t been home since. From Gus and the other security guards who watch me, I’ve gathered he is holed up inside Twig City. I can only guess he’s trying to ready his new product line more quickly than intended.
The men are tight-lipped about everything. My exercise routine goes by the wayside. They are all on edge and I overhear a couple of them talking about the men who were with me at the party that night. Both team leaders were fired and no one has heard from them since. The general consensus is that any one of them will be next.
For their sakes, I want so badly to say it is Daniel who Titus wants. Daniel who works with him. Daniel who comes to dinner and hangs on his every word. Daniel who will someday run the empire he is secretly already trying to take over. Or crush.
But I don’t. Because six words repeat over and over in my head.
… Or the others we’ve got stashed.
And I know if Imitations are in danger, there is absolutely no one else in the entire world who can help them—except maybe me.
I close the book I’m holding and return it to the shelf with the others that contain essays on subterranean particles. It is a dusty shelf tucked away in the corner of the parlor. There is nothing helpful here, but I’ve been through everything else.
“What are you looking for?”
I spin and find Linc standing just inside the open door. His expression is one of open curiosity but I know it’s more than that. For the past two days, he’s kept his distance, watching with sharp eyes as I search through the tomes for answers. Now that I’ve come up empty, I realize I never expected much to begin with.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. And because I’ve never come right out and asked, I add, “How much do you know about the work done by RogenCorp?”
“They conduct scientific research for private companies through grants and donations,” he says, eyeing me as if he thinks it’s a trick question. “Why?”
“Just trying to understand more about what they do.”
“Why don’t you ask your father?”
I stare at him pointedly.
“Yeah, okay,” he says. “But why the sudden interest?”
I shrug. “Nothing better to do, I guess.”
He folds his arms across his chest in challenge. “You’re lying.”
“All right. I think the people after me have some connection to RogenCorp.”
He straightens, instantly alert. “What makes you think that?”
I return his gaze without a word. I can see the frustration set in. I hurry to speak again before he can accuse me of another lie. “Do you know a girl named Annalyn Benner?”
His brow crinkles as he tries to place it. “Benner … a statesman’s daughter, right? Why do I remember that name?” Recognition dawns and he looks back at me. It is a regretful sort of expression. “It was on the security reports yesterday. She was killed in a carjacking a couple of days ago. Why? Did you know her?”
Killed. In a carjacking? I try to piece it together but nothing makes sense. My role is a lie. Which part had she meant? The fact that she’s supposed to be dead? How is she still free? Attending parties? Free of the device that I’d give my right arm to lose?
“Raven?”
“Yes, I knew her,” I say distractedly.
I replay the conversation in the restroom. She is working with Melanie. There is no other explanation. But why? And how is she alive when her Authentic is dead? She should be terminated.
“What’s the matter? Did she mean something to you?” Linc asks. He walks toward me slowly, obviously concerned by whatever he sees in my expression. I struggle to smooth it over.
I need to think. I need to understand. I contemplate calling Daniel and confronting him. But I know that would be foolish. Maybe it’s time to talk to Gus.
“Raven, talk to me,” Linc says. His frustration is mounting. I can hear it in his voice. His hands grasp my shoulders and he shakes me gently. It snaps me out of my thoughts.
“I’m sorry, I just—yes, she means something to me. It’s a shock.”
“It’s more than that. What are you thinking? What does that girl have to do with all this?” He gestures to the empty room but we both know he means the big picture. Me. This place. Rogen Tower.
Here is my moment. I should tell him about Daniel. About Titus. What I am. For the first time, I want him to know everything. But Rogen Tower has too many ears to say anything in this room. I look away.
“You still don’t trust me,” he says quietly.
“It’s not that. I—”
His hands drop from my shoulders. They hang limply at his sides in a gesture of defeat. “Dinner’s ready.” He stalks out, leaving me trailing behind him in a silence threaded with half-truths and fear.
***
There are two people already seated at the dining table when I arrive. One is Titus. The other is Daniel.
My heart seizes and I have to force air into and out of my lungs. For once, I welcome my role as Authentic Raven. It allows me to shove the fear aside and smile as if nothing else matters but pleasing these men.
“Good evening, Raven,” Titus says as I take my seat.
I nod at them both. “Good evening, Father. Daniel.”
“You look beautiful, as always,” Daniel says, his eyes roaming over me in a way that means more than just appreciating my appearance. I wonder if he’s looking for damage—evidence of my run-in with Melanie. When it’s obvious there is none, he turns his attention back to Titus.
The meal is served. Conversation flows and topics are brought forth and overturned at a rate faster than my mind can keep up. I force aside everything but the automatic motion of feeding myself and nodding at the appropriate places.
I don’t allow myself to think past this moment and whatever Authentic Raven would say. I eat. I smile. I answer flippantly when they ask a question. The entire time I am in awed disgust that I am capable. Even Titus looks pleased.
When the meal ends, Titus leaves us alone—something about a speech to write for some benefit for orphans who will never see a dime of the charity money given—and I am swept away to the small parlor that I have come to think of as Daniel’s room. I have not been in there since the first time we were alone together. Did he know what I was then? The thought of being in there with him now has me swallowing back a brick-sized lump. I can sense one of the security team shadowing us. Another no-name.
Linc wasn’t at dinner. I thought I saw him halfway through the appetizers, but it was only a flash of a face before he disappeared back into the kitchen. I have no doubt he’s still angry with me.
I stand awkwardly beside the small couch. Daniel goes directly to it and sinks down, either ignoring my hesitation or oblivious to it. “Sit,” he says with a smile that doesn’t reach past his lips. It makes me nervous, that smile. I don’t trust it. But I sit.
He leans closer and brushes his hand along my hairline. I am a statue as his fingertips trace a trail down to my shoulder. My face heats under his touch—anger, boiling hot, bubbles to the surface.
“How’s your father?” I ask, just centimeters from our lips meeting.
He sits back abruptly and the frown that deepens the lines around his mouth is every bit as potent as the smile he wore just seconds ago. “He’s well. Why do you ask?”
“He hasn’t seemed like himself lately.”
“I wasn’t aware you’d spent time with him lately,” he says. His tone is a warning.
I am on dangerous ground and I know it, but I can’t stop the words now. I am in too far. Backpedaling would be fatal. So I forge ahead—with no real plan except to survive the encounter.
“I haven’t. Not really. I’m just concerned. I know how much he means to you.”
“Yes. He’s all I have now.”
“Your mother …?” I stop myself before I can fully ask the question. I remember Linc and the pictures he showed me that first day. There was a smiling woman with an arm around Daniel. I remember Linc telling me she died last year. I don’t know how.
“Well. She’s gone, isn’t she?” There is a dull pain in his eyes as he says it, but it is fleeting. I wonder if he ever felt the loss of his mother or if he’s found a way to turn it off. Anger doesn’t seem like the most logical emotion to me, but then I have nothing to compare it to. I’ve never had a mother.
I don’t feel sorry for him, exactly, but at least he’s stopped trying to kiss me. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” I ask.
“What’s to talk about?” he shoots back. “The cancer took her faster than we could fight it. Faster than we could grow a cure.”
I nod like I understand but cancer is a foreign concept to me. No Imitation has ever had anything so deadly. “If that’s the case, there’s nothing anyone could’ve done. Including you.”
“Least of all me,” he agrees. “But they could’ve worked faster. Expedited the growth of the cure.”
I open my mouth to murmur reassurances but the words don’t make it out. Something he said has my attention. “What do you mean growth of the cure?” I ask.
His expression clears, his shoulders deliberately relaxing as he studies me. “Nothing, kitten, just me ranting, as usual.” He pats my knee like one would a small child who doesn’t understand a simple concept. “Don’t pay me any mind. Do you want some tea? I can ring the maid.”
“No, thank you. I think I’m going to call it a night,” I say, rising. I’m not sure what to make of the turn in our conversation but I want to sit and process it alone. There is something there, something important—I just don’t know what.
“Call it a night? But we haven’t even started yet.” And just like that, the smile is back and he is leaning in again.
“I have no intention of starting tonight. I am here for you about your mother but—”
“Do not pretend to understand about my mother. You couldn’t possibly understand anything so complex.”
I rise and make a show of smoothing my dress. “I don’t like your tone. I’m saying good night.”
I have taken two steps when his hand grabs mine and he spins me around. “You will say good night when I tell you.”
“You don’t get to order me around like you own me,” I say, packing so much venom in those words my gut aches.
“No, of course not. Titus owns you. I just get to play with you.”
I slap him. He winces and when he looks back at me, his pupils are dilated, his mouth set.
The door opens and I realize the sound of my hitting him must’ve been loud enough to alert the sentry in the hall. He steps into the room and watches us curiously. He doesn’t move toward us and I can see him trying to assess the situation, to determine the threat.
“Leave us,” Daniel snaps at him.
The guard hesitates.
“I said, leave us!”
The man shuffles out and the door clicks shut behind him. Something that feels an awful lot like hope drains out of me. I feel empty.
“That was a mistake,” Daniel says in a low voice. He takes a step toward me. I take one back.
“The mistake is yours,” I say, “to think I would just roll over and give up so easily.”
“Easy or hard, it will happen.”
“Why? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This isn’t about you.”
“Her, then. The redhead.”
Daniel registers surprise but it doesn’t last. “I’ve underestimated you, product.”
I ignore the sting left by his words and press on, determined to return the focus where it belongs. “I saw the two of you kissing. Is this for her?”
“Melanie?” He waves a hand. “Please. She is not important.”
He laughs and it sounds like a short bark. I know then that he does not love Melanie. That he is using her just like he’s trying to use me. But there is another.
“Not Melanie, then. Raven.”
In an instant, his expression is deadly serious. I’ve hit a nerve. “I should’ve known the moment he switched her for you. I … I would never hurt Raven. Her own father, on the other hand, would ship her off while he waits around for her product to bite it just so he can neutralize a threat to his precious company. His products are all that matter to him. Ironic if you think about it, considering how choosy he is with which ones he decides to grow.”
He takes another step toward me. I take another one back. “You don’t have to do this.”
“You have no idea what I have to do.”
My back bumps the bookshelf on the far wall. I’ve gone as far as I can. The minute it happens, he is on me.
For a panic-filled moment I think he is going to kiss me, to force himself on me. But then his hands close over my throat and he squeezes and I am relieved to realize no, he means only to kill me.
Despite the relief, I fight.
I have to—if not for myself, then for Anna. Or anyone else’s Imitation Daniel will try to use after me in his mission to destroy Titus.
I claw at his wrists, my nails raking down his flesh, but it’s not enough. His grip doesn’t loosen. If anything, it only seems to enrage him further. When I realize there’s no real damage to be done that way, I stop trying to pry his hands off my neck and reach out for his face. My fingers find purchase against his cheeks and I dig my nails in as hard as I can and wrench them sideways. I hear him cry out but he doesn’t let go of me.
Black spots swim across my vision. I realize I have only seconds before I pass out.
I try again with my nails and find an orifice that I pray is an eye socket. I can’t see well enough to know for sure, but when I dig in and rake downward, I am rewarded with a sharp cry and a significant decrease in the pressure around my windpipe.
It is not a long-enough reprieve. The pressure returns as he redoubles his efforts. I try to cough but it is cut short and comes out as a strangled gasp. My vision swims. I am pulled under what feels like a churning ocean. I can’t get my legs under me. I can’t break the surface.
God, dying is painful.
When the noose of pressure around my throat suddenly disappears, I am so grateful and desperate to breathe, it takes me a moment before I wonder how it happened. I suck in gulps of air that burn as they slide into and out of my lungs. But I will take the burning over the drowning any day.
There is a scuffle to my left. A fist lands in Daniel’s gut. His shoes—polished and shiny—arc upward as he’s driven off his feet. I scurry out of the way and stare at the sight of Daniel grappling for the upper hand while Linc pounds on him from above.
Linc.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He always seems to be here when I need him most. But I am so overwhelmed by the sight of him, tears well and spill over and it’s all I can do to blink through the blurriness and twist out of the way each time they come closer to making me collateral damage.
Daniel is pissed—as evidenced by the wild grunts and wholehearted way he has thrown himself into the fight. Linc is grim and silent in his determination. Daniel’s nose is bleeding and Linc’s pants have a hole in the thigh where the pocket seam has ripped loose. The door bangs open and I jump as it hits the wall.
“What the hell is going on here?” Gus demands.
The boys break apart. Gus looks back and forth between them in disbelief. When he spots me, his gaze zeroes in and I can only imagine what he is thinking. “You,” he says, pointing a finger at me, “come with me.”
“Gus—” Linc begins.
“Silence! We will talk about this later,” Gus snaps. “Wait for me in my office.”
Linc rises to his feet, shoulders stiff and hands fisted as he walks to the doorway and slips past Gus. I get up slowly, very aware of my proximity to Daniel and how much he would like to strangle me. I keep my hair in my face as I near and don’t see his hand shooting out until it is too late. It strikes me in the side of the head and sends me sprawling.
From behind Gus, Linc roars and rushes for the doorway.
“Stop him!” Daniel shouts.
Gus backs up so he is blocking the door and plants his feet. Linc barrels into him and for a moment I think the force of it will knock Gus away but he sways and then rights himself and pushes against Linc, holding him outside the door, though barely.
“Get out of my way!” Linc is growling and roaring and cursing at Daniel. At Gus. At anyone who will listen.
“I trust you will remember who signs your paychecks here, Gus,” Daniel says over the noise.
Gus doesn’t answer but I suspect it’s only because all his energy is diverted to holding Linc at bay.
“Gus, you don’t have to listen to him. This isn’t an order from Titus. He’s acting on his own,” I say.
“Shut up,” Daniel tells me.
“Gus, I know you’re like me and he’s using you. He—”
“I said shut up!” Daniel screams. He is standing over me now but he is looking at Gus. “She’s obviously been hit on the head one too many times.”
“Sir,” Gus says uncertainly. He is barely holding Linc out anymore.
“Keep him out. That’s an order!” Daniel turns from me to scream at Gus and I know it is the only chance I will get. In a flash I am up on my knees, wrenching my arm back and smashing my fist into his groin. It is the only thing I can think to do and I wonder if it will even be enough. I am rewarded for my efforts when he doubles over and stumbles, groaning, bent at the waist.
I scramble to my feet and run for the door. I see Gus, whose jaw has gone slack as he watches it all play out. Behind him, even Linc has stilled. I am only inches from slipping around them to safety when Daniel lets out a roar and I am yanked backward as his fist closes around my hair.
I cry out and lurch sideways, pulling up short.
Daniel is raving mad. He yells something unintelligible and then his fist slams into my nose and I see stars and blackness. I land hard on my back. Pain shoots up my spine but I can’t cry. It feels as if all the oxygen has been stolen from me.
I gasp until a wretched choking sound escapes my lips and air is forced into my windpipe. My vision clears in time to see Gus tackle Daniel—Linc close at his heels.
They are a tangle of arms and legs and even teeth as they grapple with each other, grabbing and clawing and pushing and pulling.
There is a soft clicking sound amidst the groans and grunts and then someone cries out sharply. The pile of limbs goes slack as we all crane to see who is injured. I see the glint of metal—a knife—as the three of them separate and crawl away from each other.
Linc positions himself in front of me, blocking my view of the other two. I strain to see around his heaving shoulders as he catches his breath.
“Linc, move,” I say.
“I … can’t.”
At once, my irritation becomes concern. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” He shakes his head, quick to assure me. “But I don’t want you to see …”
“Linc, move,” I repeat.
His shoulders droop as he seems to accept I’m not going to let him shield me. He shifts sideways, and I can just see the side of Daniel’s face as he stares at Gus. I scoot around Linc and stop.
At first, I don’t understand why no one moves. Or why we’re all staring at Gus. His shoulders heave as he is winded. His face is set in its usual scowl. Other than that …
But then I see.
Just below his left shoulder, a crimson stain slowly seeps and spreads across the light blue fabric of his shirt. Through the small tear in the center of the stain, I see a hole in his skin.
Then, as if it all catches up at once, Gus groans and slumps sideways, and Daniel and Linc are both on their feet. Daniel positioned toward the open doorway, Linc crouched and ready to spring at him should he make a run for it.
“Don’t even think about it,” Linc warns. “You won’t get three steps.”
“You forget who is the employer and who is the employee,” Daniel says.
“You think that excuses murder?”
“You think it doesn’t?”
They face off in a silent exchange I cannot decipher. Then Linc opens his mouth and yells at the top of his lungs, “Code Red!”
Daniel leaps for the door. Instantly, two security men appear, blocking his path. Somewhere in the house an alarm sounds. Linc jumps on Daniel’s back, tackling him from behind and they both go down. The other two security guards help and within seconds they have subdued Daniel and relieved him of the long, slim knife stained with Gus’s blood.
Gus groans softly and I go to him. His hand twitches at his side and I catch sight of black ink peeking out from underneath his shirt sleeve. I know the symbol immediately and it makes sense. This is why I didn’t recognize Gus as someone like me. His identifying mark is in a different place. I scoot closer.
Gus’s eyes are wide and glassy and some of his usual scowl is gone but only because the muscles in his face seem to have gone slack. I crawl up beside him and try to decide what to do with my hands. I’m not sure if I should touch him or if I do, where. I don’t want to hurt him but I’m not entirely sure I should comfort him, either. Aside from this attempt to save me, he has never done a single nice thing for me. He is not a nice man.
But he is an Imitation. He is like me.
“Gus?” I say.
“Ven,” he says.
It gives me a weird feeling in my gut to hear him speak my name. My Real Name.
“I’m here,” I manage.
“He was the one … trying to hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“He won’t anymore.”
“No.”
He nods once and then he is still.
Beyond this room, down the hall, somewhere in the house, the alarm continues to blare. It echoes around me and mixes with the sound of baritone voices as orders are given and Daniel is carted off.
Titus appears. “Raven?” he asks as he crouches next to me and looks down at his head of security who is no longer breathing.
“I thought you were writing a speech.”
“The alarm went off.”
Neither of us speaks, and it is the most comfortable one minute I’ve ever shared with him.
“He was an Imitation,” I say finally because it no longer matters whether I know.
“Yes.”
“This entire time?”
“Since the night of your attack in the alley. One of the redhead’s men got him. I replaced him.”
“I see.” I understand now why Gus never spoke up about recognizing Melanie. And I realize this particular Gus is not the one who stood by and watched while Titus struck me. A tear escapes. “He was trying to save me tonight.”
“So I’m told.”
“Daniel’s behind all of it.”
“What do you mean?” he asks. For the first time, his voice holds a note of surprise.
I tell him about the party and overhearing Daniel and Melanie as they spoke of kidnapping me. And using Gus to do it.
“What do you mean he replaced Gus on purpose?” Titus asks me sharply.
“He was trying to control Linc. He said Linc was the reason they’d failed to get to me all those other times. That he was too good at protecting me.”
Titus lets out a growl. “You should’ve told me this days ago,” he snaps.
“You’d never have believed me without proof.”
Titus frowns and then looks at something behind me. “Linc, come here.”
He gets to his feet and I know the right thing would be for me to do the same, but I can’t make myself leave Gus. I can’t make myself stand next to his body, ignoring it as if it isn’t here, lifeless and finished. Terminated.
In Twig City, they don’t allow us to use the term “dead.” They say it’s because we’re not real enough to be considered alive in the first place. We’re only created and terminated.
I hear Titus asking Linc what happened. Linc relays the same story as my own with fewer details since he arrived after most of the conversation had ended. Titus frowns and nods but doesn’t interrupt.
“Sir?” one of the security guards says from the doorway. Both Titus and Linc look up and I realize then the guard has no idea which one he should be addressing. He looks back and forth between them. “What do you want us to do with the prisoner?”
Linc looks to Titus.
“Restrain him and put him downstairs. I’ll be along shortly,” Titus tells him.
“Downstairs? You want him in Doc J’s office?”
“The empty office next to hers, soldier,” Titus says, his impatience evident.
The man’s face reddens. “Yes, sir,” he mumbles and ducks out.
“Crawford, go with them and make sure they don’t screw it up,” Titus says to Linc. “And bring the doc back when you come. Tell her to bring her bag. I want a full exam and report on Gus before they move him anywhere.”
“Yes, sir.” Linc looks down at me. “And her?”
“She’ll need to be checked also,” Titus says.
Linc doesn’t reply and I understand what he means. He’s asking whether I’ll be safe if he leaves this room.
“I’m fine,” I say softly.
Only then does he move for the door.
When he’s gone, I look back at Gus and am sorry I did. The stain on his shirt has spread. It is seeping into the rug underneath him, leaving a bright ring that peeks out from underneath his torso. His face has gone slack and too white to be real. Or alive. Or created. Or whatever.
“Raven,” Titus says, calling me back.
I turn away, glad for something else to focus on. Even if it is my enemy. Tonight, Daniel has given us common ground.
“Come sit.” He offers a hand. I don’t move. “You’re contaminating the scene. I need you to come away.”
I look down and realize what he means. The blood from my nose has begun to drip onto Gus. This horrifies me. Partly because I am dripping blood on a dead man. And partly because I didn’t notice until now that I was bleeding. It doesn’t even hurt.
I climb to my feet without the help of Titus—despite our cease fire, I must draw the line somewhere. When I’m seated, he hands me a wad of tissues and I use them to apply pressure to my bleeding nose. That is the extent of his medical attention.
“I need you to think back over the attempts on your life and tell me if there’s anything you can think of that will help us find this Melanie girl,” he says. “Anything she has said, people you’ve seen her speak to, clues she might’ve given.”
“She seems to know an awful lot about my kind,” I say. My voice is nasally from pinching my nose shut.
“Does she know about Twig City?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything else?”
And here it is. My moment. My opening to tell him about Anna. Not Authentic Annalyn but Imitation Anna from the bathroom. The one who said it was all a lie. The one who is in hiding with Melanie—and maybe others.
“Nothing I can think of,” I say.
His gaze is piercing, holding me in place. “Are you sure about that? Because it seems like you’ve been holding back an awful lot, daughter.”
“I’m sure.”
Voices drift closer from the hall. I can hear Josephine speaking to Linc, asking him questions about Gus and the extent of his wounds.
“Keep thinking about it,” Titus says to me as they enter. “I’m going to speak with Daniel.”
I assure him I will and he walks out, gesturing at Linc to follow. Josephine crouches next to Gus using two fingers to search out a pulse. She pauses for a long moment before rising and coming over to where I’m perched on the couch. The same couch where Daniel touched me. The couch I never want to sit on again.
“Oh, honey, you’re bleeding,” she says.
I wave her off and speak in my nasally voice. “Looks worse than it is. Go to Gus.”
“Ven,” she says softly. We both know there is no use going to Gus. Instead, she sits beside me on the couch and waits.
“He was trying to save me,” I say at last.
“Linc says Daniel attacked you. That he was the one doing all of this, sending people to hurt you.”
“Looks like.”
“Honey,” she says again. She slides a hand around my shoulders, pulling me in for a one-armed hug. I am careful not to bleed on her. She pulls away and her smile is sad. “Can I take a look at your nose now?”
I let her pull the tissues aside and clean up the blood, which has apparently made the injury look a lot worse than it is. When she’s finished, the only medical supply she has attached to me is a small strip of adhesive bandaging across the center of my nose. The jostling has finally triggered pain. It aches and burns all the way across my cheeks.
“It’s not broken?” I ask.
“It’s not broken,” she assures me.
“Hurts like it’s broken.” I wince as her fingertips press the bandage into place.
“The more it hurts, the less damage there really is,” she says.
She examines my throat where it feels like a new layer of bruises has cropped up over the old ones. Her fingers are feather-light and cold as they skim over my tender skin. I hold perfectly still, my attention focused on the activity in the hallway. I listen for voices but I cannot hear the words.
Josephine reaches into her bag and produces a wooden depressor. “Say aah.”
“Aah.” I open my mouth and stick out my tongue.
“Does it hurt?” she asks when she’s finished.
I close my mouth. “Some.”
“It’s going to hurt tomorrow.” She gestures to her bag. “Do you want me to give you a shot like last time?”
The damage left by Daniel isn’t even close to the pain I felt after Melanie’s attack. I wonder if that means he is weak or she is that strong. A shot is tempting. Oblivion would be welcome, at least for tonight.
Before I can answer her, Linc appears in the doorway, alone. I catch his eye and hold it for a long moment. There is something in the way he looks at me that wasn’t there before. Knowledge.
“No shot,” I say.
Josephine looks back and forth between us and then hastily repacks her things. “I’m going to check on you in the morning,” she tells me. “If you want something I can give it then.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
She removes a white sheet from her bag and spreads it over Gus. Her movements are slow, careful. This is how humans care for their dead. I’ve never seen it before. It seems … reverent.
I wonder if Josephine knows yet that this Gus isn’t human.
I wait on the couch until she’s finished and then I make my way toward the door. I can see men outside, their hands folded stiffly behind them, faces solemn.
“What are they doing?” I ask Josephine.
“Waiting for us to leave,” she explains. “So they can take Gus.”
I nod. I don’t know where and I don’t ask. I need to get out of here. To be done with this.
Linc is at my side the moment I’m clear of the room. Not close enough to touch but I can feel his proximity just the same. Josephine remains inside the parlor, her hushed orders directing the men how to handle the body. I can’t bear to listen.
Linc keeps pace with me. I don’t even know where I’m going. I have no desire to go to my room. To be alone. But I don’t want to see Titus, either. Linc’s face is the only comfort and he is already here so I stop abruptly and face him. The words die on my lips. I don’t know what to say and even if I did, I probably couldn’t for fear of being overheard.
“In here,” Linc says, seemingly reading my thoughts.
I plant my feet as he tries to lead me through a doorway. “They will be watching, listening,” I whisper. “It’s not safe.”
“No, they won’t.” He pulls on my hand but I don’t budge. “Do you trust me?” he asks.
In the end, I let him lead me inside and close the door.
It’s another parlor—this one warmer, friendlier, without any residue of Daniel. Or Gus. Or death. Linc gestures to a chair but I don’t sit. I watch as he wanders the edges of the room. He runs his hands slowly over all of the table surfaces and finally stops when his fingers catch on something at the edge of the lamp. He fiddles with it and then resumes his search. In all, he disables three devices. I’m not sure if they were for listening or watching or both.
When he’s finished his sweep, he crosses back to me with a satisfied expression. That’s when I really notice the difference in him that I’d glimpsed before. The set of his shoulders, the way he holds his hands just inside his pockets. He is bracing himself.
Whatever he knows isn’t enough or he wouldn’t still be here. But it’s more than he knew before. Either way, for better or worse, it’s time. He is the only one on my side and the only one I trust in this world.
I don’t think I can lie anymore. And even if I could, I don’t want to.