Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 468(@250wpm)___ 390(@300wpm)
Did Bella try to kill herself? To escape me?
When we get back to the Metropolis house, Atticus takes one look at us and sighs. I’m no longer bleeding, but my black eye speaks for itself, and half of Jaeger’s face is swollen.
“How is she?” I say.
“Better than you. But no change.” Atticus doesn’t tell me that fighting is a waste of time and energy. He doesn’t have to. I know it in my bones.
I return to watching over Bella. I wish I were a better man, but I’m not. I wish I could deserve her.
But I never will.
31
Kaiser
* * *
Day and night pass with no change in Bella. I move an armchair close so I can sit by her bed. Atticus sends all but his most trusted nurses away. They check her vitals every hour on the hour.
The Poisoner made good on his promise and gave Atticus Shoshonna Bosco’s journals. Atticus and I pore over them and found the ones that have notes about Bella’s health episodes. He made copies of the most helpful passages for himself. The rest of the journals I stacked beside Bella and me. I find the happiest entries and read them aloud.
There’s an entry about Benjiro taking the family to the city to see the cherry blossoms. According to the diary, Bella preferred to chase the ducks. The journal entries end in springtime, thirteen years ago. That’s when Shoshonna died. I don’t want the story to end that way, so I close the journal and say, “She loved you.”
I never knew my mother. I’d like to think she was a kind woman; she probably wasn’t. But when I was reading the journals, I could feel the love like a motherly presence. Like someone who loved me deeply was standing by my side.
My brother calls, asking for an update.
Bella lies still as a corpse. I’ve learned to put my hand on her chest to make sure she’s breathing. “Still the same.”
“Elodie sends her love. She wants to know if there’s anything we can do.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“All right.” A pause, like he’s thinking. “She’s more than a job, isn’t she.” It’s not a question.
“Yes.” She’s more than a job. More than an alliance.
She is everything.
“She doesn’t want me,” I tell him. “I’m the brute she has to marry.”
“Eh, you can’t be sure about that.”
I snort. I am a brute, and he knows it.
“Bitches love brutes.”
“Excuse me,” a feminine voice says. It’s his woman, Elodie, scolding him for calling her a bitch and himself a brute.
Jaeger and I both listen to her rant until she runs out of steam. “Okay, Bunny,” he tells her. “Got to go,” he says to me, sounding happy. “You want my advice?”
Not really, but I’d kill to have what Jaeger has with Elodie, and he knows it. So I don’t hang up.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. Tell her what she means to you. And, brother?”
“Yes?”
“Buy her a ring.”
In the middle of the second night, Bella cries out. “Mama,” she whimpers, twisting and jerking. “Mama!”
I hit the button to call the nurse attendant and turn on a low light. Bella’s cheeks are bright pink—evidence of the fever.
I hover my hand over her forehead, afraid to touch her in case I make it worse. “Shh, baby. It’s okay.”
She calls out in terror. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone.” The nurse hasn’t come. I stride to the door and bellow, “A little help? She’s awake.” I want to drag the attendant out of bed, but I don’t want to leave Bella’s side.
She’s thrashing, throwing off the covers. I race back and strip them away from her. I can’t stop myself from pulling her small body into my arms. She moans, fighting harder.
“Baby, please.” I hold her tighter, feeling helpless. If only there were someone I could kill for her. Someone I could fight.
But there’s no one. She did this to herself, under my watch. I was supposed to take care of her, and I failed.
“Mama, I’m scared,” she cries like a child. “Come back. Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t, baby. I’m here.” I press my lips to her hairline. My skin tingles like I’ve been burned. “I won’t leave you.”
The nurse finally comes in, looking half awake.
“Where have you been?” I snarl. I make him take her vitals while I hold her. I refuse to let her go. I won’t leave you, baby. Never.
A few hours later, I wake with a start. I’m in the chair. I must have fallen asleep. I have the strangest sense that someone brushed my forehead. But it can’t be Bella, who’s asleep. And no one else is here.
But I feel that sense that someone is standing beside me. Someone lovely. I feel a presence. A motherly presence.
Maybe it’s Shoshonna. Maybe it’s Livia, haunting us until we find her children and give them her ashes.