40. Lucie
Across the room, Whistler became unusually interested in his keyboard.
Heat crawled onto her cheeks.
“Hiya, I’m Lucie.” She reached out her hand but pulled back. Was she supposed to salute him, too?
“I know you are Ms. Nightingale,” Mr. Williams chuckled, not cruel or mocking, just amused.
“You do?” she stammered.
Who was she kidding? He was the Director of the Way Station; she was sure he had her Social Security number memorized, had laughed at what her second-grade teacher had written on her report card, and knew the embarrassing number of pints of ice cream she had bought in college.
Please strike me down here so I don’t have to hear the next words from his mouth.
“Do you think there’s anything that happens at the Way Station I don’t know about?” Mr. Williams asked, leaning against his cane.
Lucie opened her mouth.
He raised an eyebrow at her.
Instantly, she closed her mouth.
“That wasn’t a rhetorical question,” Mr. Williams said, leaning forward.
Sam walked behind her, and she flinched.
“I’ll answer that for you. Dad knows everything. If a squirrel farted somewhere on this property, I guarantee you he already has a written report about it on his desk.”
“It wasn’t hard to notice my general planting a flower garden and how he couldn’t stop smiling during mission reports,” Mr. Williams reported. Sam snorted.
For the first time since Mr. Williams came into the room, Lucie found herself smiling.
“But what I don’t know is why you are here,” Mr. Williams said.
She froze.
In her nightmares, she had hoped Finn would be there to answer all of this when Mr. Williams inevitably found out about her, but she was all alone. As usual.
The ground seemed to swallow her whole. What was she doing here? Who did she think she was? This was government property. In movies, they killed people for trespassing.
How was she supposed to answer? That she was here because she was terrified for her life and had carried everything she owned in a couple of bags?
That she had fallen for Finn? That she could see herself being friends with Sabrina and Charlie for the rest of her life?
That she thought she could do a lot of good here?
That dying here sounded less bad than anything waiting for her back home?
Sam wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“She’s a doctor,” Sam said proudly.
Lucie nearly choked.
“I am not.”
“The team is moving in,” Whistler announced, and Finn replied, but Lucie barely heard it.
“Close enough,” Sam said, waving her comment off. “You helped me with that scrape this morning after the blackberry bush. She can do it.” Sam pulled her in close. She’d given him a Band-Aid and the rest of her mint brownie. That didn’t exactly make her a candidate for the Lasker Award.
But relief washed through her straightaway, and her knees went weak.
Sam had stepped into the conversation without hesitation, redirecting his father’s attention before Lucie could embarrass herself further.
He hadn’t even seemed to think about it.
He had simply helped.
The realization settled strangely in her chest; she wasn’t alone here.
Was that what it was like to have a sibling? Someone who noticed when you were struggling and stepped in without being asked?
The idea felt almost absurd.
“I was studying to become a doctor,” Lucie corrected. “I didn’t finish.”
“From what I saw, you were in the top three percent of your class, had a scholarship, and were close to graduating,” Mr. Williams said.
“My father had a pretty bad fall,” Lucie confessed, though she was sure Mr. Williams already knew.
“I had to come home to take care of him,” she said, balling her hands into fists.
But now she knew it was a lie. Another way to keep her under her father’s thumb.
Maybe if she had left sooner, she would have realized that.
Mr. Williams studied her for a long moment, then nodded.
“There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for my family either,” Mr. Williams said, fiddling with his cane, lost in thought. “The difference, however, is that family should never have to fear the people who claim to love them.” His eyes peered into her soul.
He knew.
Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. Because Mr. Williams hadn’t said it with judgment, he’d said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, as if fathers were supposed to protect their daughters.
She looked away, returning to the monitor displaying Finn’s vitals before anyone could see her tears.
Out of the corner of her eye, Whistler sat upright.
Simultaneously, she saw the data spike on Finn’s vitals, and before she could even finish speaking, a shot rang out, loud enough to make her jump, and the screen erupted with movement.
“Man down, man down!” Sabrina yelled over the comms.
Then static.