Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Ansel
Iwasn’t entirely sure when Neal and Sorcha had disappeared. But I’d been combing the stacks and banging on office doors trying to find them. I pounded on this one again until a librarian bustled up behind me and told me to be quiet.
“I will be quiet,” I shouted at the door, “when my idiot children stop sulking in the bloody closet!”
“Go away,” Neal called from behind the milk-glass panes of the door.
I huffed and settled for listening at the keyhole. I bent down and pressed my ear to the door. I heard something—muffled. Laughter? Not quite. Hiccuping, gasping. Sorcha mumbling, “I just don’t think I can do this.” Neal’s quiet reassurance.
And I suddenly realized what was happening. She was in there hiding, in there crying.
“Sorcha, I didn’t mean it like that!” I called through the door.
Then I nearly lost my footing as the door swung open, pushing me back from my place at the keyhole. Sorcha was livid. Tears streaked down her face. Fists clenched tight at her sides.
“Then what the hell did you mean?” she snapped. I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t even take a breath before she continued. “You know what? Don’t answer that!”
She was pacing now. I saw the librarian creep back into view, pushing a cart of books, expression a mixture of concern and annoyance. Neal waved the woman off without a word.
“Because I’m too damn tired to hear you keep talking right now,” Sorcha continued, eyes scrunched closed, every line in her body tense.
“Because I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this!
I’m two centuries too young to have this job.
You think I don’t know that? Did it occur to you this morning that maybe I was just too frustrated and too tired, and I couldn’t listen to that smug bastard play with us?
Because I’ve been sick for months and I’m barely sleeping and, Ansel, I’m pregnant but I’m losing weight.
Pregnant, by the way, because you told us we had to have a baby right now.
Even with everything that is happening! Did it ever occur to you that I’ve been deferential because I know you have more of this figured out than I do?
That maybe I’ve been deferential because I felt inadequate and underprepared and . . .”
She trailed off then. Leaned back against one of the tables littered with books. Put her head in her hands and sobbed silently.
I took a deep breath, made myself calm down, and then finally managed my two least favorite words in the entire English language. “I’m sorry.”
Neal took Sorcha’s arm and helped her up.
“We’re gonna go to Mass,” he said calmly. “You’re going to come too. And you’re going to sit a few rows back and keep your mouth shut. You’re going to make sure nobody suspicious causes any problems. Alright?”
I opened my mouth to protest, to say we should get back to work, but Neal shot me a glare. And given Neal had been seconds from putting a bullet in me earlier this morning, I figured it wasn’t best to test him further.
“And then we are going to find real food she can actually eat,” Neal continued, “and we are going to sleep the entire night. In one go. You with me?”
“I’ve got it.”