“Want a lift?” Shame stood on one side of the police tape. Even though he had no magic, he still managed to blend in and look like he was just another citizen out ogling the police and pony show.

I strode down the walk toward him and didn’t stop. “Where’d you park?”

“Up a block. What’s the hurry?”

I had to press my lips together to keep from yelling. I shook my head.

He got the hint and paced me, then unlocked the car so I could get in. Shame got in the driver’s side, which was fine with me. Even though Shame still looked like death on a low simmer, I was angry. And I didn’t want to kill us on the highway.

As soon as Shame started the car, a coo called out from the backseat.

I knew that coo.

“Stone!” I unbuckled so I could sit up on my knees and reach back for him. “Where’d you find him?”

“He found me,” Shame said.

Stone filled the entire backseat; his head rested on his outstretched arms like he was really tired. But at the sound of my voice, his ears pricked up into sharp triangles and his wings shifted against his muscled back. He tipped his head enough he could look at me and gave me a toothy smile.

“I missed you, boy.” I reached back and petted his head.

Three things sank in: one, Stone was cool, not cold, but not his usual cozy temperature. Two, he wasn’t moving as fluidly as he should, his motions catching like he was full of gears that had rusted up. Three, his eyes were different. Usually his eyes shone with a sweet kind of intelligence. Right now they were dull, like someone had taken a sandblaster to them and left behind clouds.

“Hey, boy,” I said more gently. “Who’s my good boy? Who’s my big hunter gargoyle? That’s right, that’s you. You’re a good boy.” I rubbed his head and scratched behind his ears. He angled his head for a better scratching, but did it slowly. His coo and his happy marble sound were too soft, like all he had left in him was a whisper.

“Stay there, boy, okay? Sleep time.”

He gave me a rock-garbled reply and dropped his head back down to rest on his forearms.

“He’s not moving very well.” I don’t know why I said it. It was obvious. Shame knew it. I knew it.

“I’m amazed he’s still moving at all,” Shame said. “Maybe he has his own backup spell battery in that belly of his.”

“Is there anything we can do to help him?” I asked.

“Besides getting magic up and running again?”

“What happens if he runs out before then?” I asked.

Shame just shrugged. “You tell me. No one’s been able to pull off an Animate this big for years.”

I rubbed at my forehead. I had no idea what would happen. I didn’t want to think about it.

“At least we know where he is,” Shame said.

True. I could probably get him up into my apartment if I had to. And if he ran out of magic there, at least I’d know someone wasn’t breaking him up into gravel or turning him into a table or something.

“You want to tell me where I’m driving?” Shame asked.

“Legacy Emanuel. Someone broke in and stole all the disks.”

“All?”

“Hundreds. Charged with magic.”

Shame’s eyebrows shot up. Yeah, it freaked me out too.

Then he started laughing. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Now? Really? Hundreds of disks on the loose with a goddamn storm bearing down on the city? Perfect. Just perfect.”

“Do you know what the disks will do when the storm breaks?”

“Not a damn clue. Might be nothing. Might be a lot. If we see a mushroom cloud suddenly blow out half the damn city, we’ll know for sure. Fuck it all. Did you Hound for Stotts?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Shame slanted me a look that was pure appreciation. “I’d be interested to know how you pulled that off.”

I tugged the crystal out of my pocket and held it up for him to see. It was still cool, but not frostbite cold. “Ever see this before?”

Shame glanced at it. “God’s balls, woman. Where did you get that?”

“In there.”

Shame made a quick right turn and nearly hit a car that honked as it went past us. He stopped in a lot behind an office building and twisted in his seat. “Give.”

Yes, I was hesitant to give it to him. But whom else was I going to trust with this? Whom else could I even ask about it? Maybe Violet. If she were conscious.

I handed it to him. Shame held it like it was made of gold and unbroken dreams. “It’s natural,” he said. “Who—no, how can this even exist?”

“It carried magic. Enough I could Hound the room.”

“Still does. It’s weak, thin, but it is refilling, slowly . . . like the heartbeat of the world.” Shame licked his lips and swallowed hard. Then he slowly pressed it against his mouth. He closed his eyes and a shudder shook him.

“Shame?”

With visible effort, he lifted the stone away from his lips and held it out to me, without looking at me, without looking at the stone.

“Take it. I’d drink it dry.”

I hesitated. Shame wasn’t looking good, but the stone seemed to have brought a little color into his lips. Maybe letting him use the magic in the stone would help. “Maybe you—,” I started.

“No.” He looked away, looked out the window at the dark city. “You don’t want me to have that. It will only make me want more.” I saw the reflection of his smile in the glass, and it was pure hunger and need, coupled with a willpower I didn’t know he had.

I shoved the stone in my pocket and Shame rubbed his hand on his thigh, as if trying to rub off the sensation it had left behind. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and held it between his fingers, but didn’t light it. He went back to driving like nothing had happened.

Except I could tell his hands were shaking, and he was sweating. Not pain. Hunger.

“What did you see when you Hounded?” he asked as if we were talking about the weather.

This was the weird part. Shame had been raised in the Authority. He knew more political backstabbings and payoffs among the people in the Authority than I’d ever get the inside skinny on. His mother was a voice in the Authority, essentially speaking for every user who trained under Blood magic. He had more connections than Velcro.

If I told him the Authority was behind the break-in, whom would he tell? Did he already know someone in the Authority wanted the disks enough to attack my pregnant stepmother?

There is a reason I am not a spy. I do not do the cloak-and-dagger bit worth a shit. I prefer to lay my cards on the table, and then draw a gun to clear up any misunderstandings.

That meant it was default mode again—the truth.

“Someone from the Authority broke in. Fought with Kevin. Hurt him. Hurt Violet. With magic.”

Shame was silent. I watched his body language. Something like curiosity or like he was trying to figure out where that information fit in with other information.

“Could you tell who it was?” Flat, even. He knew how to keep his emotions in check when he wanted to. Wasn’t that a surprise?

“Dane Lannister.”

Shame frowned. “Seriously?”

I nodded.

“Huh.”

“Do you know why he would do that? Couldn’t he have told Kevin he wanted the disks?”

Shame took a deep breath, let it out. “I don’t know. There are always things going on in the Authority that I don’t know about. I haven’t heard . . . No, I haven’t heard that Sedra wanted the disks.”

He stopped at a light, tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Could be a last-minute thing. Don’t know why they wouldn’t have clued Kevin in. But Violet. Yeah, they might not have wanted her to know. Still, force is usually a last resort.”

I snorted. “You people are always throwing magic around. What do you mean, force is a last resort?”

“Us people? You’re a part of us too. And it is. A last resort. They used magic?”

“The spells were . . . collapsed. Tangled. Crushed.”

Shame pressed his head back into the seat of the car, straight-arming the wheel. “I am so going to ask for a raise. This job blows balls. You want me to take us to Mum’s place instead? We can get some answers. Find out what the cool kids are doing.”

We were just a couple blocks from the hospital.

“No. I want to see Violet.” And if she was awake, I planned to ask her a few questions. Like if she had been making a move on the Authority, trying to strong-arm them into something and holding the disks as collateral. She was smart and she was strong. It would not surprise me to find out the business associates who were angry with her over releasing the data on the disks were actually members of the Authority, maybe even Sedra herself.

And the way Kevin felt for Violet, the love he would not admit to, might just be enough to make him take her side. Might be enough to make him fight Sedra’s bodyguard for her.

Love did strange things to people. Left them weak, made them stronger than ever before, or destroyed them.

Shame drove into the parking structure and wound his way up the concrete ramps until he found an open space.

“You coming in with me?” I asked.

He lit the cigarette and sucked down the smoke. “I’m not letting you go in alone.”

I stopped, my hand on the door handle. “Why?”

“That’s the way it is.”

“Talk, Flynn.” I wanted to know whom he was working for, or spying for. His mother? Jingo Jingo?

“I owe Zay. For letting you down. For letting him down. I should have known. Seen it coming. Chase is such a bitch.” He opened the door and blew the smoke out in a thin stream.

Oh.

“Yeah, well, we all could have done something differently. But we didn’t. Now we go forward,” I said, “ ’ cause looking back won’t fix anything. Stay here—it won’t take me long to check on Violet.”

“Wrong. Chase and Greyson are still loose. Still on the hunt. Still looking for you.”

“They got Zay. They don’t want me.” But as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it was not true. Greyson wanted my dad, the rest of him that was still inside me. What they did to Zay just got him out of the way so they could do what they really wanted.

“Holy shit,” I said. “They attacked Zay because they want to get to me.”

“I swear, you are denser than lead,” Shame muttered. “Of course they wanted him out of the way to get to you. And they wanted him out of the way because he is the guardian of the gates. The one and only magic user who can use light and dark magic to break the barrier between life and death. Knocking him out means that when the gates blow open—and I’d bet my left ball they’re going to—he won’t be able to close them.”

“There are other Closers,” I said. “Terric, Victor, Nikolai, and Romero, more of the Seattle crew.”

“None of them use magic like Zayvion Jones. No one does. Not even Victor. Or Terric.”

An image, a flash of Chase and Greyson casting magic together, using magic in ways I had never seen, making it go against its own laws, rolled through my mind.

“Soul Complements,” I whispered.

“What about it?”

“Chase and Greyson. That’s why they could use magic like that. That was the only thing that could hurt Zayvion.”

“Part right. Soul Complements let them screw with the laws of magic. But they threw around light and dark magic. And they could do that because Greyson is a Necromorph—half alive, half dead. Whatever he did to Chase so she could do it too—his own Soul Complement . . .” He blew out smoke again. “It makes me wonder how much that bloodsucker would burn in sunlight. He’s using a hell of a lot of dark magic.”

“No. Greyson didn’t use magic. He had to use Tomi to cast Blood magic for him.”

“And now he has Chase to act as his hands. Happily ever after, evil-style, in their evil little hovel with the evil little picket fence around the evil little garden of poisonous weeds and dead bugs. Evil cookies, evil nooky—not that I have anything against those last two.” He got out of the car and I did too.

“Don’t you take anything seriously?”

“No,” he lied. “It makes me interesting.” He started off toward the elevator that would take us to ground level.

Elevator. Great.

But before I closed the door, I leaned back in the car. “You be a good boy, Stone,” I said. “Sleep. Okay?”

Stone cooed but didn’t move one granite muscle.

I shut the door. And strode across the parking structure of gray, gray, gray, my boots cuffing a loud rhythm against the concrete ceiling.

Shame waited by the elevator, hood up, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets, the discarded cigarette sending up a tendril of smoke at his feet. He didn’t face the elevator doors. He faced me. Good to know he was keeping an eye out for trouble.

Just as I stopped next to him, the doors opened with a horror-sweet ding.

“After you,” he said.

Okay, I could do this. I’d done it plenty times before. “Are there stairs?”

“Fuck stairs,” he said. “Too slow. And too damn much work.”

I gritted my teeth. Couldn’t get my feet to move.

“Need a push?” he asked.

“No.”

A hand slammed into my shoulder and a body followed it. I stumbled into the elevator. “What the hell?”

“Your phobia was saying no, no, but your feet were saying yes.”

He stabbed the button and stood in the corner nearest the doors, facing me.

“If you ever listen to my feet again, I will end you, Flynn.”

He glanced at me, grinned. “Ooh. You’re kinda hot when you’re angry. I suddenly see why Jones likes to make you mad and then tumble you on the mats.”

“Don’t. Just don’t. Or they’ll have to scrape you up off this floor with a dustpan.”

He opened his mouth, thought better of it, and instead stood there and whistled.

Whistled. Using up all the air in the tiny, tiny room, filling it up with sound so that there wasn’t even room for me to hear my own thoughts. There wasn’t enough room for me to breathe. I closed my eyes and tried to picture open fields, blue skies, oceans, deserts. Big horizons, big space, big air.

A hand grabbed my upper arm and tugged, hard, propelling me toward the open doors.

I didn’t stumble this time. We were at the street level on a sidewalk covered by the overhang of the parking structure.

Shame made a tsk sound. “And you were going to do this alone.”

“Alone I would have taken the stairs. You are seriously pissing me off.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

He started off toward the doors. “Good thing about anger. It keeps you going when nothing else will.”

He’d done it on purpose. Shoved me when I didn’t even want to be touched, irritated me. My heartbeat was up, but other than that, I was thinking clearly. And not at all freaked-out from the elevator ride, though I should be. Usually it took me a couple minutes to shake off the panic from the phobia.

“You’re a real jerk, you know?”

He smiled and it looked like it hurt. “I am whatever it takes to get the job done.”

We stepped into the hospital and checked with reception to see where Violet and Kevin had been taken. Both had been admitted. Violet was in the prenatal ward three floors up. Kevin was in the intensive care unit, and visitors were not allowed. They were doing what they could to tend his magic-induced injuries with what little magic they had left.

Shit. We wouldn’t be able to get in to see him unless we wanted to storm the place. I weighed my options. Sneak in and somehow be lucky enough to see if Kevin was okay, or check on Violet.

Dad pushed at the backs of my eyes. Yeah, well, I knew what his vote would be.

“Think Kevin will be okay?” I asked Shame. We were standing shoulder to shoulder so the receptionist couldn’t hear us.

He tipped his head, thinking it over. “If he made it this far, there’s a good chance he’ll recover. Several of the Authority doctors work here. They’d know him, and know what to do with severe magical injuries.”

I nodded. That would have to be good enough for now. I didn’t know a lot about Kevin’s personal life, like if he had family in the area. I pulled my book out of my pocket and made a note to check on him tomorrow, if I could. I walked back over to the receptionist’s desk.

“Where are the stairs?” I asked. She pointed down the hall and I started off in that direction.

“You’re kidding, right?” Shame asked. “There’s a perfectly good elevator right over there.”

“Take the elevator. I don’t care.”

Shame scowled. “How about I just make you angry again? That coat makes you look fat.”

“Even more reason to take the stairs.”

“Fucking hell.” He sighed dramatically. “I hate you, Beckstrom.”

“Hold on to that,” I said. “You know, because anger will get you there.”

Shame rolled his shoulders and I heard more bone grind than I should. Like a fricking walking corpse, he still had his hood of his coat up, the shadows catching moss green against his sallow skin.

Maybe I should make him check into the hospital. Maybe he was sicker than I thought. Maybe the magic Chase had used on him, and the magic he had used to help me save Zayvion, had done something more permanent than he wanted to admit.

I found the door to the stairs and pushed it open. It was only three flights up, and I did that every day at home. But I was a little worried about Shame.

An elevator probably would be his best choice. “You know I won’t get killed between here and the third floor,” I said.

“Yep. Because I’m gonna be there to protect you. Walk.”

I shook my head and started up the stairs. I did not need his protection. There was no magic, so it wasn’t like someone would magically attack me. Which meant I could get killed only the old-fashioned way—with guns, knives, strangling, beating. Okay, maybe it was nice to have Shame with me. I could handle myself just fine physically—even better now that I’d been training—but it never hurt to have an ally in a fight.

We didn’t say anything as we climbed. Shame walked behind me, and I listened for his breathing, which remained good, strong, and his footsteps, equal to my pace.

“So which doctors are a part of the Authority?” I asked on the second floor.

“Not saying.”

“Why? Is it that big of a secret?”

“Enough that I don’t want to talk about it in a stairwell with this much echo. Would have told you in a nice quiet elevator, though.”

I grinned. “Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

We made it to the top of the stairwell and I opened the door, then followed the signs to the reception area.

Shame wasn’t breathing hard, didn’t even seem like he’d broken a sweat. He did, however, shove his hands in the pockets of his coat and hunch up his shoulders like he was enduring a hailstorm.

I gave him a questioning look.

“It’s just . . . babies.” He said it like most people say snakes or spiders or tax collectors.

I had no idea what his problem was. “You’re afraid of babies?”

“Shut up.” He strode past me to the reception desk and, I noted, stayed far enough away that the light wouldn’t quite clear the shadows beneath his hood. “Violet Beckstrom,” he said. “Could we see her?”

The woman at the counter looked sixteen, the tight curls of her black hair pulled back in a flowered headband that make her deep brown skin burnish gold.

“She’s resting. There isn’t a restriction on visitors, though. Are you family?”

“I am.” I stepped ahead of Shame. “And he’s a friend.”

“She’s been given some painkillers, so she might be sleeping. We’d like her to get as much rest as possible, so if she is asleep, you could come back later.” She pointed down one of the halls that branched off from the main hall. “Down there. Room 3243.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We headed down the hall and I noted Shame walked closer to me, almost brushing my shoulder with his.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I won’t let the scary babies hurt you.”

He didn’t say anything. Which was weird. I had no idea what had gotten into him.

And then we passed the huge glass window beyond which was the nursery. Shame’s body language changed. He went from stiff-shouldered and tense, to relaxed, loose, like a runner who was warmed up and ready for the road.

The emotion that rolled off him was hunger.

Holy shit.

“You aren’t afraid of the babies. You want to . . . eat them? What the hell?” I was still whispering, but that did not lessen the horror in my voice.

“It’s not that I want to eat them—well, okay, maybe a little.” He grinned at me. “Oh, put the Bible down, Beckstrom. I’m not going to hurt babies. It’s . . . it’s just so much life around here. Life, get it?” He tipped his head down so the shadows cleared his eyes, and I was relieved to see Shamus behind those eyes. Sane, clear. “I’m on some short supply of that right now. And babies are full of fresh, beautiful life energy.”

“Tell me you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t. Not in a million years. Not if my life depended on it. Not for anyone. Not for anything. Not ever.”

And I knew he meant it. Which was good. I did not want to have to fight him. Again. But I would for babies.

We were still walking. I put my hand on his arm, and could feel the bunch of muscle against bone. He might promise to never take the life energy from the babies, but it wasn’t an easy thing to resist.

“Is this because of the fight?” I asked. “What you and Terric did to help me keep Zay alive? Is it a part of dark magic?”

“No, it’s just a part of Death magic. Energy transference, life transference, carried on the magic. And the side effect that comes with giving too much energy before you draw on magic again, or reclaim that energy.”

“Eating babies is a side effect of Death magic?”

“Like dry mouth.”

“Is a disgusting sense of humor a side effect too?”

“No, that’s all me.”

“Shame.” I stopped. Pulled on his arm.

He pivoted toward me, his head down again, slanting me a gaze though the shadows. “Yes, Beckstrom?”

“Do you need energy? Life energy?”

“Not need. Want.” He pulled his arm away. “I couldn’t take it anyway. No magic to carry it on. Can we keep walking?”

We could and we did, passing the babies, and stopping about midway down the hall at Violet’s room. “You coming in here?” I asked.

“Afraid I’ll gnaw on your stepmother?”

I made a face at him and opened the door as quietly as I could. Violet was in the bed. Someone had brushed her hair back, revealing a bruise that covered her forehead and spread palm-wide down the left side of her face. She was in a hospital gown, an extra blanket tucked across her rounded figure, monitors and an IV hooked up to her.

Something inside me twisted, hurt. I felt, more than heard, my dad’s moan, his sorrow. It was good enough to know she was alive. Probably better if I didn’t go in to see her. Better for me. For my control over my dad. And maybe for Shame too.

Violet stirred, opened her eyes, squinted, without her glasses, over at us. “Allie,” she said softly, and a little slurred. “Come in, please.”

So much for walking away. I stepped in. “Hi,” I said.

Shame held up one hand. “Hello, Mrs. Beckstrom. I could step out if you two want some privacy.”

What did you know? Flynn had manners.

“It’s fine,” she said. Violet pursed her lips, as if trying to feel her teeth. “I’m numb.”

“Something to help you sleep, I think. Has the doctor talked to you?”

“She said I should sleep.” She closed her eyes, and the green lines on the monitor jumped before it settled again. I wasn’t sure what the doctors were monitoring, but I knew it had something to do with magic as well as her physical injuries.

“I’ll let you rest. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, that the baby’s okay.”

Violet frowned. “Baby?” She pressed her fingers against her eyes. “They said I might go into early labor.” She pulled her hands away from her eyes and cradled her stomach. Her eyes opened and the whites were red and glossy from more than just rubbing. She’d been crying. “Poor little thing. There was so much magic in the room. I can still feel it in me. In the baby.” The tremor in her voice gave away her fear. She sounded small. Frightened.

I put my hand on her hand.

Dizziness washed over me. Dad pressed against the backs of my eyes, against the edges of my mind, pushing forward.

I couldn’t let him. Couldn’t trust what he would say to her. It never went well when he tried to run my life, or my body.

Stop it, I thought to him. You’re dead. Stay dead. It’s not going to help her if she thinks anything else right now. Don’t mess with her.

He did not stop pushing.

“I know you’re going to be fine,” I said to Violet.

She looked down at her stomach. “I don’t want to lose the baby. It’s all I have left. Of him. Of Daniel.” The last word came out with a longing. “He’d be so angry I hurt our baby.” She made a sound that was half sob.

Dad shoved. Hard.

Like falling off a curb, I stumbled and landed in the back of my head. I could still see Violet. Could still hear her, but I could not feel my hand on hers. Which wasn’t a big surprise, since I couldn’t feel any of the rest of my body either.

“I—,” Dad said through me.

No, no no. Don’t. Dad, don’t, I thought.

“I know,” he said, getting the hang of my mouth far too quickly for my comfort, “that I—that he—married you because he saw your strength. You know how much he loves—loved you. You know he would be proud of you. And he regrets—would regret not being here for you, to see the baby, to hold you both.”

Sorrow, hope, fear, and regret raged through me. My father’s emotions, not mine. And on top of them all was love.

It pissed me the hell off. I was all for happy endings, but not if it meant my dad using me, my body, my mouth, my hormones. It didn’t help that he’d never shown this kind of emotion around me before. And now I was crawling with his emotions, and knew, far too intimately, his feelings for Violet.

Give me back my body! I screamed at him. Yes, like a two-year-old getting her tantrum on.

Shame, in the corner of the room, suddenly stood out of the chair and walked over to the opposite side of Violet’s bed. He tipped his head a little, letting the light under his hood, almost reaching his eyes. He stared at me, at my dad behind my eyes, and his eyebrows hitched up.

“I think he would be upset,” Violet said, still gazing at her belly. “About everything. About me. I’ve made a huge mess of things.”

“Perhaps some things, yes. But not everything. He most certainly wouldn’t be upset with you. And he’d be stunned.” He swallowed—I swallowed, whatever—then said, softer, “He’d be so very thrilled about the baby.”

“Do you think so?” Violet looked up, eyes unfocused but searching for hope, for comfort, for understanding. And I felt my heart, my body, stir with love and desire for her.

Okay: no. I just could not wrap my brain around where this road might lead. I had a complicated enough relationship with her. I didn’t need to mess it up with Dad’s desires.

“I know so,” he said gently. “Trust me, Vi. He is looking down on you right now with nothing but love.”

She smiled. “Daniel used to call me Vi.”

Shame snapped his fingers. “Wow. Isn’t that neat? I have an idea. It’s time for us to leave. Now.”

It was about time Shame picked up on the weirdness. You’d think someone who dealt with Death magic would have caught on sooner there was a dead guy running the show.

“You’re not a part of this family, Mr. Flynn,” Dad said through me. “You can wait.” And I knew he tried to put Influence behind it, because I could feel the twist and pull on the small magic inside me, but I wrapped around that flame, holding it back, far, far out of his reach. The magic, the small magic, stayed with me and Dad was shit outta luck.

Shame chuckled. “No, I can’t wait. And neither can you, Allie. We should let Violet get her rest.” Shame put his hand on my hand and licked his lips, smiling with his lips parted.

I felt it.

So did Dad.

Shame’s hand was warm, almost too warm, his palm slick on the back of my hand. Very clearly, the tingle of something being drawn out through my skin, like a leech had just stuck onto the back of my hand to suck my blood out, or like a really bad Band-Aid rip, prickled my skin.

Dad did not like it. We both knew what Shame was doing—taking a little nip of him. So much for needing magic to draw on energy. I guess Shame could draw on life—or was it death, since my dad was undead?—without magic.

That made Dad angry.

And distracted.

I shoved him with everything I had.

And fell back into myself, a wave of vertigo doing damage to my knees. I had the presence of mind not to fall on top of the pregnant woman.

No, I had more sense than that. Enough that I pulled my hand off hers, Shame pulling his hand off mine at the exact same time. But just before my fingertips left Violet’s hand, I felt the bump of movement in her belly.

“Oh,” she said. “Did you feel it? The baby moved.” Her words were slurring, and her eyes were only half open now. The lines on the monitor jumped again, uneven, ragged.

Somewhere in the center of my brain, my dad raged.

“I did,” I said, my mouth tasting of wintergreen and old leather, and not feeling nearly enough like it belonged to me. “It’s wonderful, Violet.” I tried to smile, but wasn’t sure I did it. “Shame’s right. You should get some sleep.”

Then there were nurses, striding into the room, moving briskly, doing things with the tubes that ran in and out of Violet. They told me she’d be fine, but needed me to leave so she could rest.

I turned and walked out of that room, leaving Violet and my unborn sibling to their care, and took my father and his pain as far away from them as I could.