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Unfortunately, he has a point there.
7
ARSEN
This is a new low.
I’ve been pacing along the same ten-foot stretch of hallway in front of Laila’s room for half an hour, waiting for an excuse to barge in—a scream, a loud bang, a cracked open door that I could pretend I thought led to my room. Anything to get her to speak to me.
Hell, I’d settle for getting her tolookat me.
Preferably as though I’m not the spawn of Satan, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Blyat’,” I mutter, tilting my ear towards the door.
I stopped hearing Nina a few minutes ago, so I’m pretty sure my daughter is asleep. But judging from the light under the door and the soft creaking of the floorboards, Laila isn’t.
She’s pacing, too, just like I am, though she’s probably dreaming up creative ways to murder me in my bed.
With that comforting thought at the forefront of my mind, I decide to knock.
She answers faster than I expect, but she doesn’t seem surprised to see me. As her eyebrow arches ever so slightly, I think maybe my vigil didn’t go as unnoticed as I thought it would. “Arsen.”
A murder attempt would be warmer than that. Hell, I’dprefera little violence. I’ll hand her the knife myself if it means getting some sort of reaction out of her.
This mute, frigid apathy is ten times worse than a slap across the face.
“Do you have everything you need?” I ask. I’m instantly disgusted with myself—as if I’m housekeeping here to refresh her towels. Thirty minutes and that’s the best opener I could come up with.
“Yes.”
“Is it… warm enough in your room? If not, I can have?—”
“It’s fine.”
“Nina is?—”
“Asleep. Like I plan to be in another minute. Goodnight.”
She shuts the door in my face without waiting for me to speak. A second later, the lock clicks into place.
Even if I broke the door down, I still wouldn’t know what to say to her once I was inside.
Which is the only reason I can think of for why, twenty minutes later, I find myself standing in the hospital room of the one person who knows Laila better than anyone else in the world.
Marie is in bed, her face turned towards the open window. She’s sunken into the sad excuse for a mattress, her skin as pale as the over-bleached sheets swaddled around her waist. Her eyes are wide and vacant, and for one frantic second, I think she’s already gone.
Then she turns to me, a smile spreading across her thin face.
At least someone is happy to see me.
“Sorry I missed our lunch today.”
“You had important things to take care of.” Marie points to the chair next to her bed. “Boy, you look like hell warmed over.”
“There’s that trademark Barnes flattery I’ve come to expect.”
“I take it the reunion didn’t go as planned?”
