Page 56 of Master of Chaos

Please, God. Give her a long, happy lifetime of them.

Shane had looked starkly miserable at dinner. His face was like a marble mask. And I was not the only person who noticed. Of course, he’d been through hell, but I could sense, from the way he tensed when Holly’s arrival was mentioned, that he was deathly afraid to see his little girl tomorrow.

He was afraid of disappointing her. Of not having whatever he thought that she needed from him, after being altered for the worse by his ordeal.

Halliwell’s cruelty was a gift that kept on giving. Shane was free, but he was tense, joyless. He couldn’t rejoice at being home. That was tragic. And unacceptable.

I was in the same boat, of course. Scared shitless of how vulnerable and exposed Reggie’s illness made me. But Shane had it worse.

That bastard was not going to drive a wedge between Shane and his little girl if I had anything to say about it. Shane could not possibly disappoint his kid. He was like a demigod. What he’d endured, what he’d survived. She might be shy with him, wary of what the experience had done to him, but once everyone relaxed and adjusted, his daughter was going to be so proud of her dad. I was sure of it.

I eased my arm from beneath Reggie’s arm, inching away until I could climb out of the bed. She was in the deep sleep of total exhaustion. My sweet, brave honey.

I got up and made my way slowly down the hall on tiptoes, to the room where they had put Shane. I put my hand on the knob… and hesitated.

I knocked, very softly. If he was sleeping, I didn’t want to wake him.

“Yeah?” I barely heard the low rasp of his voice through the door.

I pushed the door open. He sat up in his bed.

“It’s me,” I whispered.

“Come on in.”

I closed the door. The only light was the outdoor lighting that came through the picture windows. Just enough to show the shape of the room, the outlines of his dark form.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said.

“Me neither,” he said. “Maybe I never will. Or maybe it’s just the wake-up drug you gave me. I hope so. That means it’ll wear off eventually. Time will tell.”

“I couldn’t say what that stuff was,” I said. “Jana gave me that dose already loaded into the syringe.”

“Who’s Jana?”

I hesitated for a moment. “A woman I met there,” I said. “The one I told you guys about, whose mother was killed by one of the fake diseases. She helped me. I had to steal your body from her. At least that was how we played it. She gave me a knock-out syringe for her, and a wake-up syringe for you.”

“A woman helped you?” he said slowly. “Why did she help you?”

“Like I said. Halliwell played the same dirty game with her that he’s playing with me. He sickened and then killed her mom with one of his fake diseases.”

I regretted opening up this avenue of questioning. I certainly didn’t want to mention being half-siblings with that crowd. Revealing that I was Halliwell’s daughter would compromise any alliance I might form with these people. I didn’t dare to do that.

Reggie came first.

“So she helped you for her dead mother’s sake?” He sounded doubtful.

“That was the sense I got,” I said cautiously. “I tried to get her to come with us, but she refused. She gave me the syringes. Told me to knock her out before I took the gurney, to make it look good.”

“He must suspect her, then. Because nothing looks good in this mess.”

I swallowed. “I don’t think she really cares anymore,” I said. “I think she’s at the end of her rope. She’s a good person stuck in a poisonous place. I felt really bad for using her, in the shape she was in, but I was desperate. And we got this far, right?”

“We sure did,” he said.

His tone, and the silence that followed struck me as odd and suspicious. “What? What’s on your mind? Talk to me.”

“There’s a lot you didn’t tell me, Red.”