Page 56 of Rogue’s Mark

"Fischer didn't go easily."

It's Sting who says it from the corner, in that flat, even voice of his, the same voice he used weeks ago to lay Fischer's crimes out one page at a time. "When they came for him, he understood what it meant. He wasn't composed." A small pause. "He begged, actually. At the end."

And there it is. A cold little wave of something that might be guilt, washing right up over me. Because Fischer held the supply room door for me once when my hands were full. He made me coffee. He was nice.

But he begged.

No matter what he did to destroy Rothwell, there's a version of me that flinches at handing him over. That flinches at the thought of him begging.

For about four seconds.

Then I think about Rothwell Elder Care. Forty-two people put out of the only home they had left, some with nobody to come get them, because Fischer signed the paper that sent their nursing home money somewhere else. I think about the Saturday market dying one booth at a time while men like Fischer got rich off the wreckage. I think about my father, scrubbed off the face of the world, made to seem dead, while Fischer played Tommy the friendly supply guy and slept just fine.

Fuck that guy.

"Okay," I say, and my voice doesn't shake. "Okay. Good."

Mara's hand finds my shoulder. Rogue's watching me like he's bracing for me to break, and I don't, because I'm not going to. Not over Fischer. I've got my proof. I've got my father's little paper boat sailing out of a photograph, and now, somewhere on the other side of this dead city, I've got a place where he's waiting.

He's real. He's findable.

And I am absolutely, bone-deep terrified, because there's nothing left between me and the one thing I stopped letting myself want.

Just a door somewhere, and my father behind it.

34

VI

We will leave at first light.

That's the call, made fast and without any debate. A location, a plan, who walks where and watches what. The day disappears into logistics I'm only half present for, because the other half of me is mentally somewhere across the city in a room I've never seen, with a man in a chair holding a paper boat.

And now, it's the dead middle of the night before, and I cannot lie in my bed for one more second.

The image with the boat is on my nightstand where I can see it. It’s in front my eyes whether they're open or closed. Every time I get close to sleep, the same thought jolts me awake like a hand on my shoulder: tomorrow. Tomorrow, I find out if the man I've been grieving and chasing and building my whole ruined life around is still, in any way that matters, my dad.

I'm out of bed and down the hall before I can stop.

I don't knock on Rogue's door. I've never had to.

He's awake. Of course he's awake. He's sitting up against the headboard in the dark, no shirt, one knee bent, like he's been waiting for me. When I come in, he doesn't ask what's wrong. He just looks at me standing there in an oversized T-shirt and nothing else, and he lifts his blanket.

"C'mere," he says.

I go.

I climb in and he folds himself around me, my back to his chest, his arm heavy over my ribs, and for a minute, neither of us says anything. I can feel his heartbeat against my spine, even, deliberately slow.

"I'm scared," I finally say. To the dark, not to him. It's easier that way.

"I know."

"Not of the location. Not of whoever's out there." I press my palm flat over his forearm. "Of him. Of walking into that room and, well, what if he's different, Rogue? What if I'm different? What if we look at each other after all this, and the thing that used to be there is just… gone. What if I did all this for a stranger?"

He's quiet long enough that I think he's not going to answer. Then he says, low against the back of my neck, "Then you'll know. And knowing's better than the not-knowing you've been living in. Even if it guts you." A pause. "But for what it's worth, the man who put a paper boat in a photograph for one person to find didn't forget who you are. That's not what that is."

My eyes sting. I hate that he's right. I hate that he says the exact thing.