Lor said softly, “You never could stand that.”
Ryodan lay shuddering while Barrons worked, then gathered his strength and went on. “She tore the damned room…apart looking for…something. I couldn’t figure out what. The place was a bloody mess…must’ve exploded when the fire started. All kinds of…weapons, ammo…kept trying to push it away from the fire and…keep her from burning. Food everywhere…a filthy pillowcase with ducks on it and…rotting fish all over the place. Fucking fish. I kept thinking what the fuck…was with the fish?”
Rotting fish? I frowned, unable to process it.
“Finally, she…screamed and dove toward the bed and I thought…so, her kid is under there…it’s okay…I’ll get them out.”
He fell silent again and closed his eyes.
“And she pulled out the stuffed animal,” I said miserably.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“How did she end up unconscious?”
“Me.”
“You hit her?” Lor growled, half rising.
“I was a bloody…fucking idiot. Should’ve known better.”
“What did you do?” I exclaimed.
“When I saw…what she was holding…cooing to it like it was…fucking alive, I…” He trailed off. Then after a long moment he hissed, “I took it from her, ripped it open, and showed her it was just a…a stuffed animal.”
“And she snapped,” Barrons said quietly.
“Blank. Her eyes filled with…anguish and…grief then…just empty. Like she wasn’t even…alive anymore.”
“You think it’s like that Tom Hanks movie,” Lor said, “where he got stranded on an island and talked to a goddamn ball for years?”
“Only Jada forgot it wasn’t real,” I said, horrified.
“Don’t know,” Ryodan said. “Maybe it’s…how she survived and…why she came back Jada. She kept saying he was so…emotional. Moody. He needed her to take care of him. Possible she survived by…divvying herself up…creating an imaginary friend with…Dani’s attributes…while becoming Jada.”
I closed my eyes. Tears slipped down my cheeks.
“I made her see…he wasn’t real. Then she…was just…gone. Bloody hell…I did it to her.”
We sat in silence for a time.
Finally, I got up.
Ryodan would survive. He had his brothers.
Dani needed a sister.
—
Lor followed me out. “What the fuck was up at Chester’s, Mac? Why was an Unseelie prince in our club? And where the bloody hell was he hiding?” he demanded.
I stopped walking and turned to face him. When I’d asked him to capture me a sifter to take me to Chester’s, he’d insisted on coming along. I’d demanded he remain in one of the subclubs with the sifter while I went to get Christian. I’d called it due as part of my favor, thereby keeping my oath to Ryodan that his secrets were mine.
I gave him a frosty look. “You asked me a favor and I gave it to the best of my ability in exchange for one from you. We’re even. If you try to push me on this, I’ll fight you with everything I’ve got. And I’ve got more than you think. Like you, Lor, my loyalties are to Ryodan. Give me space on this.”
He measured me a long moment then inclined his head. “I’ll leave it. For now.”
Together, we went upstairs to stand vigil over Jada.
—
Over the next several hours, visitors came to see Jada. I don’t have any idea how they got into the store with the funnel cloud around it. I assumed Lor was bringing them in somehow. Living with the Nine around means accepting endless mysteries. Jo came and sat with me for hours and we talked and tried to figure out what to do to help Jada/Dani heal. Jo told me she’d been to the abbey twice to see her, but Jada had kept herself surrounded by her closest advisors both times, and acknowledged her only to enlist her aid in continuing the modernization of their libraries.
Jada’s sidhe-seers took shifts coming, sat grimly with us and kept us updated on conditions at the abbey, which I barely heard, staring at the bed, lost in sadness deep enough to drown.
Barrons intermittently came upstairs, checking with grim dark eyes to see if anything had changed.
Jada lay unmoving in the bed, as if carved from stone, holding on to the charred stuffed animal as though her life depended on it. I was surprised Ryodan hadn’t dropped it. He’d been burned beyond belief but somehow managed to hang on to both Jada and the stuffed bear with which she was obsessed—and keep them both from burning. Any other man would have dropped the thing in the fire.
Finally, I was alone with her, and I moved to sit on the bed. As I pulled the covers up, the glint of Cruce’s cuff caught my eye and I suddenly couldn’t get it off my arm fast enough.
She’d given it to me when she kept my spear. Hadn’t wanted me walking around unprotected, even then. And it had kept me safe from all harm in battle tonight.
It should have been on her arm.