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“Where do you usually sleep?”
“In the apartment upstairs.”
“And M has an office and big room.”
She nodded.
“And where does Lunita sleep?”
“On the roof.”
“What about Amber?”
The little girl pointed to a space behind me.
I turned and there was a gate that covered a huge hole in the wall.
The little girl kept her voice low. “That is how you get to her sewer.”
“But, it is connected to the basement.” I considered the stuff that Emily had told me, and even thought of what Maxwell had said once. “Maxwell’s father would play hide and seek with all of you in the basement.”
The little girl looked down at the lion and hugged it tighter.
Maybe, the basement was the first time he touched her inappropriately, and he did something until Amber was born.
The more I delved into the labyrinth of Emily’s mind, the more evident it became that my role was not merely that of a spectator.
If I could just. . .piece together. . .at least some of the fragmented aspects of her trauma.
I took one step toward the little girl. “Can you take me to the roof? I want to see Lunita.”
The little girl opened her mouth in shock.
“Absolutely not, Kazimir.” Pavel hurried around Emily and got in front of me. “I do not want to meet Lunita, and you have gone far enough in Emily’s mind. Let us count ourselves lucky and—”
“I need to find answers for my mouse.”
“Kazimir,” Pavel’s voice broke through my turmoil, softer now, tinged with an empathy I hadn’t expected. “There are no right answers in a place like this, and especially for you. There are only bad choices and consequences.”
No.
This was Emily.
My mouse.
The one person who had seen beyond the murderous beast inside of me and had reached into the darkness to find my heart.
“Pavel.” I scowled at him. “If there is even a sliver of a chance that I could help Emily, protect her in a way that I never could in the physical world. . .”
Pavel shook his head.
“I owe it to her to try.”
“And if you get lost in here or trapped—”
“I raced around Paris naked, wielding my rocket launcher. I have bombed for Emily and killed many. Even recently. . .” I let out a long breath and turned my view to my mouse on the ground. “I jumped into a pit of alligators just to get an eye.”
Pavel sighed. “Kazimir, think of Emilio.”
