After everything that’s happened to her…
I don’t know how to react, how to deal with this. I take shelter in barking a laugh, the edges sharp and bitter as aloe.
“What could possibly be funny?” says Michael.
“She’s gone out, against every protest and effort to stop her. She’s achieved what she set out to do; Beth is back with Richard. She’s certainly been beaten, perhaps raped. She gotten home, God alone knows how…. That’s obviously what all her interest in the City plans was about, so she anticipated that too….” Helpless with frustration, I run fingers through my hair. “She’s pulled up out of the sewers…. And now she cries…”
Jade…. How do I help you?
I’m supposed to be your protector….
Michael chews at his knuckles. “Did you ask for a female doctor?”
“Mmm, yes.” Then, at the knock on the door, “Ah, that should be her.”
But it’s not. Instead, Richard, one arm draped around Beth, stands there. Wearing bright smiles, they’re carrying champagne and a brightly wrapped parcel, gay with ribbons and foil. But as they step inside, the smiles vanish. “James? Michael? Is everything alright?”
“She’s been beaten. She’s covered in bruises. And we think she’s been raped.”
Beth blinks, her head drooping a little, then she sweeps by us. “Here, let me talk with her…”
After a few seconds, there is the quiet murmur of voices.
Richard scuffs at the carpet. “Elizabeth did mention something to me about this. I didn’t want to say anything because she wasn’t sure.”
Michael’s eyes raise, violence in his gaze. “You didn’t want to say anything?”
“Would it have helped? When there was nothing to be done?”
Michael takes a step towards Richard, but I hold up a staying hand. “Calm down. We both knew what the possible consequences were if she was captured. So did she.”
behind his eyes, Michael subsides and the three of us settle into a taut
at the end of her resources. She’s been running for days. She was beaten while we were held, and she took some more damage while she was running, and…” She fixes a laser stare
you to
brow, but then looking at Beth
His sub….
impasse is broken by Michael. “James isn’t
you
we face each other,
are you?”
Green-Eyes…. You’ve paid your
done and achieved God-only-knows-what to return to us. “No, she’s been through enough. Perhaps it will have taught her
Let me handle it.… when
that what she needs, is the pair of you,
Richard, nodding her to the door, a touch of ice in
me and Michael to
I say
nods, but
What am I missing?
We go into the bedroom to find Charlotte, red-eyed, sitting on the bed and trying to finger-comb her damp hair into order. She
very angry
conflicting emotions washing through me? Despite everything that was said to her, by Michael, by myself and even by
beside her and kissing her cheek. “Yes, we are, but that
bed, but he doesn’t. Instead, he simply stands, looming over her. She looks up at him, then away again. “I’m
just stares down. “I’ll leave
What the fuck?
him, blinking, then leans into my chest as I stroke her
a knock from