Page 28 of Hush, Little Baby

His lip wobbles.

“And that,” I add, gentler, “is being corrected.”

A sound escapes him, small and broken enough that it nearly ruins my patience. He looks away, shoulders hunched, one hand still pressed over his middle as if he can hold himself together by force.

“I want to go home,” he whispers again, but there is less fight in it now. More grief.

There are answers I could give. True ones. Cruel ones. I could tell him that he has no home worth returning to, no safety waiting there, no one who will notice quickly enough to matter. I could tell him that whatever life he had before tonight is already ending, that the boy he was when he walked into that club alone no longer exists in any meaningful way.

Instead, I slide my hand from his chin to the back of his neck.

“I know,” I say.

The admission seems to break something in him. He squeezes his eyes shut, and a fresh line of tears spills down his cheeks. I’ll need to make sure he gets something to drink before bed. With how much he’s been crying, he has to be dehydrated.

“I know you do,” I continue. “But right now, you are going to get warm. You are going to let me wash your hair. And you’re going to sleep somewhere nice. Then tomorrow, you’ll take whatever medication Constantine brings from your apartment, and enjoy a ride on a private jet.”

His brows draw together in confusion. “I—Wait. My… my apartment?”

“Yes.”

His eyes open, alarm cutting through the haze. “What do you mean? What are you doing to my apartment?”

“Getting your medicine,” I say calmly. “And anything else you might need.”

“No.” Panic snaps through him, bright and sudden. “No, don’t—don’t go in there. You can’t go in there.”

Interesting.

“Why not?”

His throat works. For a moment, I think he will refuse to answer on principle, but Charlie does not appear to have much principle left when frightened. He has instincts instead, and shame, and exhaustion.

“It’s messy,” he says finally, so quiet I almost miss it. “It’s disgusting.”

That word again.

I dislike it more every time he uses it.

“Then it will be cleaned.”

“No,” he says, faster, shaking his head. “No, please, I don’t want anyone seeing it. I don’t want—” His breathing turns shallow again, climbing too quickly. “Please don’t let people go through my stuff.”

I study him.

The trembling has returned, but this is not the same terror as before. This isn’t fear of me exactly, though that remains, but fear of being known too thoroughly. Fear of the evidence of his life being held up to the light.

“You have medication there, don’t you?”

“Yes, but…”

“No buts. I will not take you across the country without it.”

The sentence lands between us like a glass dropped on marble.

Charlie stares at me. His face changes by degrees, confusion folding into dawning comprehension, then into disbelief, then into something so stricken and silent that my fingers tighten before I can stop them.

“A-across the country…?” he breathes.