Chapter 19
Shane
From that point on, the day went even more steeply downhill.
Red was white-face, tight-lipped, unreachable.
Rose stayed for dinner, which was a subdued meal, forks clinking in the gloom, hushed conversations, no laughter.
Everyone was trying to be positive, to think pro-actively, but there was a feeling of dread in the air.
The square of Angela’s fabulous lasagna sat on Red’s plate, untouched.
Freya and Rose were looking over the list of medical specialists they were considering. They tried to involve Red in the conversation, but they had to keep calling her over and over before she heard them. She was locked inside a nightmare in her head.
I could relate.
We helped Angela clear off the dinner dishes, and then she brought out some hot Dutch apple pie and a tub of ice cream.
“Honey?” Angela called out to Red, holding out a loaded dessert plate. “Want some dessert? Sweetheart? Cass?”
“Hmm?” Red saw the pie and shrank back. “Thanks, but I’m full.”
Angela’s eyes darted to her untouched place. “Hmm. All right. I’ll dish some of this up for the girls, and we can… oh! There you are, sweetheart. Speak of the devil. You two ready for some pie?”
We turned and saw Holly standing in the dining room entryway. She looked frightened.
“What happened?” Red leaped up, her chair scraping. “Is Reggie okay?”
“She fell asleep during the movie,” Holly said. “And when she woke up, she seemed confused. She was calling for her mom. Isn’t her mom, um…”
“Dead. Yes.” Red hurried around the table. “Two years now. She’s delirious.”
“She does feel really hot,” Holly offered, as Cass hurried past her.
We trailed after her, crowding into the TV room. Cass was crouched in front of her sister, talking softly. I kneeled down next to her.
“Baby?” she repeated. “Hey. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“Mommy?” Reggie’s voice sounded weak, higher and younger than before, like a five-year-old. “Is that you?”
“No, it’s Cass, sweetie-pie. I’m right here.”
“Is Mommy coming?”
“I’m here, baby.” Red pressed her hand to her sister’s face and shone her cell phone’s flashlight into the neckline of Reggie’s sweatshirt. “She’s hot, and she’s starting to get that rash again. Do you guys have a thermometer?”
“Right away. And I’ll bring the Tylenol drops.” Angela scurried away.
“Tylenol’s not going to do it.” Red’s voice was bleak. “It didn’t help her the last time. And saline solution certainly won’t. I’ve got squat to help her.”
“I’ll call Demiguel.” Ethan pulled out his phone, backing out of the room.
I stood there, outside the bubble of Red’s great storm of trouble, watching her hunched over her sister, her back shaking as she stroked Reggie’s hair.
Angela bustled in with the thermometer and the Tylenol drops.
Ethan was talking in low, urgent tones in the corridor, and I was helpless and inert, watching from behind six inches of glass.
Ethan closed his call and met my eyes. I walked out and beckoned for him to follow me. We went to the sunroom, which was chilly and dark and private.
“You know where this goes,” I said to him. “You know exactly what happens to that kid if we don’t stop it.”
“You know what else?” Ethan said savagely. “I know that bastard Halliwell knows we’re having this conversation, and he’s rubbing his hands together, chortling.”
“He taunted me about Holly,” I said. “He’d show me videos that his people had filmed of her. He’d tell me he was going to ‘collect’ her, to motivate my memory.”
“He’s fucking with you, Shane. Can’t you feel the strings jerking?”
“I see a little girl dying,” I said. “One who doesn’t have to die.”
“Shane—”
“The reason we got shafted the last time was because Wex Boer was dirty,” I said. “My bad. I was the fool who hired the guy. That’s on me. But there’s no Wex Boer here. It’s just our inner circle. If we use it to find Reggie’s cure, who’s going to know?”
“Look, brother. I know you’re in love with Cass, and I swear, I don’t blame you. But I wouldn’t call her inner circle. We’ve known her for, what, twenty-four hours?”
“What she did for us gives her a free pass,” I said. “Straight into the circle.”
We shut up as Red knocked and peeked in the door. “Excuse me,” she said. “But did the doctor say when he would get here?”
“He’s on his way,” Ethan told her.
“Her temperature is almost 104,” she said, her haunted eyes meeting mine. “It’s happening so fast. The last time, it came on slower.”
“We’ll do everything we can,” Ethan assured her.
She nodded silently and turned to go.
“Does she look unconvincing to you?” I asked, a few seconds after she’d left.
“Goddamn it, Shane,” he growled.
“It could have been Holly,” I said. “Just shuffle those cards a little and it could have been Holly, turned into a weapon to beat us with.”
“We’d be exposing Holly to danger too, if we used SmokeScreen, particularly to penetrate Halliwell’s security,” Ethan said. “We’d be exposing the whole fucking world. You know how badly he wants it. And you know what that guy is capable of.”
I nodded, lifting my hands. “Yes, I do,” I said. “He’s rotten to the core. And it’s your call. It always was. You wrote it. You decide. But if you value what Red did for us, that’s the fee she’s asking for. Decide for yourself if you feel like paying it.”
“Fuck you, Shane,” he snarled.
I turned around without replying and headed back toward the TV room. If I couldn’t save Red’s sister, I could at least stand with her while she faced her own worst-case scenario. I would be completely useless, but I’d be there for her. I wouldn’t run and hide.
“Yes,” Ethan said quietly, from behind me.
I froze for a long moment, then turned to look at him. “Yes what?”
“Yes, I’ll use it. We’ll cut through the Coatesworth security with it. And as soon as I am done, I will wipe that motherfucker off the face of the earth.”
“Which one?” I asked. “SmokeScreen? Or Halliwell?”
“Both,” he said, his voice low and savage. “And then it will be over.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll tell Red.”
“I’m doing the search myself, though,” he said sharply. “Cass doesn’t touch the algorithm. I don’t even want her in the room.”
I thought about Red, huddled anxiously over her sister. “That’s fine,” I said. “She’s busy now anyway.”
“Good. Tell Jed and Freya and the Drakes to join me in the war room. We’ll get to work. You just focus on keeping your girlfriend from falling to pieces.”
“She’s not my…” I cut off the words. Damn. I was still afraid to tempt the gods.
Ethan gave me a wry look. “You were saying?”
“Yes,” I said, with grim determination. “I’ll concentrate on helping my girlfriend.”
I ran back into the TV room. Reggie was tossing restlessly on the couch.
“Let me take her to the bedroom,” I said. “She’ll be more comfortable in bed.”
Red nodded, wiping her eyes and sniffling. I scooped up the little girl, who weighed practically nothing. She was limp and shivering. Red scrambled ahead of me, opening doors for me, opening the bedclothes so that I could lay her down.
Red peeled off Reggie’s goofy, alligator-swallowing-foot slippers, and tucked the blankets around the shivering child. Then she sat down cross-legged next to Reggie on the bed and grabbed her sister’s hand.
“Mommy?” Reggie murmured.
“It’s Cass, sweetie pie.”
I sat down on the foot of the bed and just blurted it out. “Ethan’s going to hack into the Coatesworth database with SmokeScreen,” I said. “He’s getting started right now.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh God,” she whispered. Her mouth began to shake. “Thank you.”
Her dazed reaction made me nervous. “Don’t pin too much hope on it yet,” I warned. “We don’t know if he’ll find anything. Or if what we find will be useful, or accurate. It’s just…”
“It’s the last stone to turn,” she said quietly. “Thank you. For turning it.”
“Save it for when it actually helps,” I said.
“It helps me right now, whether you like it or not,” she told me.
I scooted closer to her, hesitated, then scooted closer still, wrapping my legs and arms around her so she had something to lean on while we waited for the doctor.