Chapter 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.
Whoever it is, I press my hands together and bow my head. Father Francis tried to teach us about his God, and he would smile if he could see me now, praying to an unseen presence.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please.”
When I lift my head, I feel a sense of peace. I could be imagining it, but the room smells like flowers. Roses or something stronger. Something sweet.
Bella
The scent of roses wakes me. It smells like roses and lily of the valley. My mother’s signature scent.
The room is too hot, the air pressing in. There’s a slow beeping sound that’s driving me crazy. My skin feels tight, and my mouth is too dry.
I open my eyes. I’m in my bed. Kaiser’s beside me, asleep with Viking Thunder propped open on his chest. Like he was reading and fell asleep. I lick my lips. I need water.
Moving makes me dizzy, and there’s a dull pain in my right arm. I glance down and see something stuck in the crook of my elbow, taped there. A needle that leads to a tube that leads to an IV.
What the—?
I pull the tube, and the IV stand shakes.
Kaiser’s eyes pop open. “Bella?”
I grit my teeth and dig my nails under the tape on my elbow. It hurts as it peels away.
“Bella. You’re awake.”
“Get this off me,” I croak.
He grabs a bottle of water, breaks the seal, and holds it to my lips. I drink a few mouthfuls until he makes me take a break.
I lick my lips again. It tastes like someone’s put cherry Chapstick on them. “How long have I been out?”
He looks around blearily for a clock. “Fifty-two hours.”
Hecate, help me. That’s a long time. I knew I’d have a temporary reaction to all the poisons I took, but this is a little dramatic. I overdid it.
My father would say I told you so. Kaiser looks like he lived through a war.
He helps me drink more water, and I feel better.
I scoot until I can sit up, then get back to peeling off the tape until I can rip out the IV.
He reaches for me, and I flinch. I don’t want him touching me.
I can still feel the poisons swirling under my skin.
They’re not killing me anymore. I’ve assimilated to them. They’re a part of me but still deadly.
He hesitates with his hand hovering just out of reach. “Do you feel okay?”
“I’m fine.” I look up and see a stranger walking through the door. “Who’s this?”
“Your nurse,” Kaiser says.
“I’m Tommy,” the stranger says, grabbing a stethoscope and approaching. “I’ll just check your vitals.”
Kaiser seems fine with this, so I lie back and let the nurse do his thing.
“Temperature’s normal,” the nurse sounds surprised. “I’ll inform Atticus.”
Kaiser tells me Atticus has been overseeing my care. I nod absently. I notice a stack of old notebooks on the bedside table. They look familiar. I wait until the nurse leaves to ask Kaiser, “What are those?”
“Your mother’s journals.” He stands beside the bed, looking worried.
“Oh.” I reach out and stroke the closest one. It has a pretty cover, blooming peonies on a green background.
I remember Kaiser’s voice rising and falling close by. I was in the dark and couldn’t see, but I could hear him. “You read them to me.”
“Yes. I thought it would help. Your father found them for us.”
I raise my head. “Did he visit me?”
Kaiser looks like I’ve punched him in the gut. “No.”
I sigh. I guess I can’t be disappointed.
“Bella.” Kaiser sits on the bed. “He wanted to. It’s my fault he didn’t come.”
“What?”
“I told him I would kill him if he tried to see you.” His face holds no expression, but I know him well enough to know he feels guilty. He’s torn up about this. “I thought he had done something to you.”
“No. He wouldn’t.” I pick at the bedspread. I like that Kaiser defended me to my father. “When my father poisons someone, no one ever finds out.”
“Bella, why did you do this?”
“I was testing something.” I quote one of my favorite movies. “I’ve built up a tolerance to deadly iocane powder.”
Kaiser doesn’t smile. He looks like someone died. “I thought…” He shakes his head. “I thought you were dying.”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
“Fuck,” he breathes out and drops into the armchair next to the bed.
“It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”
He rubs his face. He’s got a few days’ worth of golden stubble covering his jaw. “Your father told us this happened before. He didn’t seem concerned. The last time you were sick like this was when your mother died.”
I think back over the years. I would’ve been five. Darkness tight on my skin. Burning heat. The memories are blurred, but they’re there. “I remember.”
“I shouldn’t have threatened your father. He cares about you. ”
“Not enough to—” I cut myself off, but Kaiser knows what I was going to say. Not enough to stop this arranged marriage.
He stares at me, looking haggard. I want to put out my hand and comfort him.
But I don’t. We can’t touch anymore. It’s for the best.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “He couldn’t have done anything.”
“He was so worried. We all were.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’ll never happen again.”
Kaiser
Bella’s awake, but she’s not herself.
Atticus comes and looks her over, pronouncing her out of the woods. He prescribes lots of liquids and rest.
I order every type of soup I can think of. I call in more favors until I reach Royal Regis, the head of the mafia family. Royal’s wife, Leah, owns Pane P’s. I offer him a favor in exchange for a special delivery of Bella’s favorite baked goods.
It doesn’t work. Even the cruffins—a disgusting mix of muffins, croissants, and cream—don’t tempt her.
She stays in bed, drinking plain broth and tea. Color returns to her cheeks, but she still acts listless.
I put on her favorite season of Vampire Varsity and tell her that I think Luna shouldn’t have ended up with Dargon, the evil twin. She usually argues passionately about that.
She says nothing.
And she doesn’t let me touch her. At all. She’s careful to make sure our skin doesn’t touch, even by accident. I never realized how much I touched her until I couldn’t touch her anymore. She’s shut down, and normally I’d rub her shoulders and neck to get her back online.
She’s still recovering, I remind myself. She’s not herself.
But it feels like more than that. It feels like the old Bella died. She’s gone forever.
I’ve never seen her act so cold, so remote. Almost robotic. A lot like her father. The emotion is gone, buried deep. She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t cry. The only time I see a flicker of anything is when I show her the journals.
“You can keep the journals,” I say. “Your mother would’ve wanted you to have them.”
She nods, running her hands over them.
“Do you want to read them?”
“No.” She stacks them up and puts them to the side.
I take a deep breath. “Your father would like to come visit. Do you want that?”
“No.” She lays her head on the pillow and stares at the ceiling. I know she’s recovering, but it feels like she’s shutting me out. “Keep him away.”
“He would want to see you.”
“His life is better without me in it.”
I begin to protest, but she says, “No, it’s true.” She sounds tired. “He blamed me for her death. And he’s right to. I’m the reason she was murdered.”