Chapter 10 — The Things We Could Not Undo

“Sebastian.”

I let go of my mother and dropped beside him.

His head had fallen forward. Blood darkened his shirt beneath the hand he could no longer keep pressed against his side.

“Sebastian, look at me.”

An agent knelt on his other side and called for the medics.

I touched his face.

His skin was cold.

“Please.”

His eyes opened briefly.

I leaned closer, trying to hear whatever he was attempting to say.

“Your mother,” he whispered.

“She’s here.”

He looked past me.

My mother had crouched beside us.

“I’m here too,” she told him.

His eyes closed again.

The agent reached between us.

“Let me work.”

I moved because he needed me to, not because I could bear it.

Medics came down the passage carrying bags and a folded stretcher. The chamber filled with questions, clipped instructions, the tearing sound of packaging.

Someone pressed a towel into my hands.

I stared at it until my mother took it and wiped the blood from my fingers.

“I don’t want him to die.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know whether he’ll be all right.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t.”

I looked at her.

She hadn’t offered the lie I wanted.

I held her hand anyway.

At the hospital, they took Sebastian through doors we couldn’t follow.

A nurse examined my mother’s face. Another cleaned the cuts on my hands.

Then an investigator asked us what had happened.

I answered until my voice stopped cooperating.

When he asked whether I had somewhere safe to stay, I almost said no.

My mother’s hand rested beside mine on the plastic chair.

“We’ll arrange something,” I said.

She looked at me, but she didn’t interrupt.

Hours passed.

The waiting room television played without sound. A man across from us slept with his mouth open. Someone brought coffee that neither of us drank.

Just after dawn, a surgeon came out.

Sebastian had survived.

The bullet had passed through his shoulder. Fragments from the wall had caused the wound in his side. He had lost enough blood to need transfusions, and the doctors wanted him watched closely.

But he was alive.

I sat down before my knees failed.

My mother covered her face.

For the first time since the vault, I let myself cry without trying to stop.

By late morning, Sebastian was awake.

He looked smaller in the hospital bed, though I suspected he would have disliked hearing that. His shoulder was bandaged. An IV ran into his arm.

I stopped in the doorway.

His eyes found me.

“You’re standing.”

“So are neither of us, apparently.”

A faint smile moved across his mouth.

I pulled a chair beside the bed.

“You look terrible.”

“You slapped me.”

“Your other cheek.”

“I remember.”

I laughed.

It surprised us both.

Then I looked at the bandage, and the laughter disappeared.

“You should have told me.”

“Yes.”

“About my mother. About Vale. About all of it.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to keep saying that until you get tired of hearing it.”

“I won’t ask you to stop.”

His admission left me without the argument I had prepared.

I rested my hands in my lap.

“The investigator said they arrested the men who attacked the house.”

“They found the one who left the chamber too?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian closed his eyes for a moment.

“What?”

“He could have reached you again if they hadn’t.”

“They caught him.”

He nodded.

I watched the muscles in his jaw loosen.

Even here, he was still counting risks.

“My attorney has the messages Vale sent me,” I said. “And Ethan’s payment record.”

“Good.”

“I’m giving my statement with her there.”

“Good.”

“And I’m choosing where I live.”

His eyes returned to mine.

“Of course.”

“Even if you think the security is terrible.”

“Then I’ll tell you why I think that, and you can decide.”

I studied him.

“That would be new.”

“It would.”

Outside his door, a cart rattled past.

I looked toward the window.

“Why did you come yourself?”

“To the conservatory?”

“To the bus stop.”

He was quiet.

“You have drivers. Guards. People who could have found me.”

“Your mother saw the alert that Vale’s men were moving toward Lexington. She asked me to go.”

“That’s why someone went. It isn’t why you did.”

He turned his hand on the blanket, palm upward.

A scrape ran across his knuckles.

“Twenty years ago, you woke while I was carrying you away from the car.”

My stomach tightened.

“You asked whether morning would still come.”

The words stirred something.

Not a picture.

The feeling of being held against a coat that smelled of rain and smoke.

“I didn’t know what to tell you,” he continued. “There was a fire behind us. Your mother was still there. But you were looking at me as though I could decide what happened next.”

“What did you say?”

“That morning would come. That you needed to stay awake long enough to see it.”

I looked down.

He waited.

“At the bus shelter,” he said, “you had that same look. You were trying so hard not to need anything.”

“I needed everything.”

“I know.”

“Did you feel guilty?”

“Yes.”

I raised my eyes.

“But that wasn’t all of it,” he said. “You were cold. You were hungry. You were alone. I couldn’t leave you there while I found someone else to help.”

I remembered his hand stopping when I caught his wrist.

The way he had stepped aside so I could reach the car.

The offer I had accepted because I no longer knew what else to do.

“You said you brought me home because you saw me.”

“I did.”

For once, I had no question ready.

The next weeks belonged to statements, appointments, and documents with places marked for my signature.

Investigators confirmed that my credentials had been used without my knowledge. My former employer’s accounts were examined. My landlord’s notice became part of a file rather than a sheet I carried because I was frightened someone would deny it existed.

Ethan tried another number.

I gave the message to my attorney and blocked that one too.

My mother and I moved into temporary accommodation while the house was repaired.

One evening, she placed a box on the table.

The envelopes inside were arranged by year.

My name appeared on every one.

I picked up the oldest.

For your ninth birthday.

“I don’t know if I can read these.”

“You don’t have to tonight.”

“Were you going to give them to me?”

“I kept telling myself I would.”

I set the envelope down.

“That was the problem, wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

I went to my room.

For almost an hour, I sat on the edge of the bed, angry that she had written and angrier that she hadn’t sent them.

Then I went back.

She was still at the table.

“I want to read one,” I said. “But I want you here when I do.”

She pulled out the chair beside her.

Sebastian visited after his doctors allowed it.

He stayed for dinner, complained about the soup, and ate two bowls.

When my mother went to answer a call, he helped me clear the table one-handed until I made him sit down.

“You’re enjoying giving orders,” he said.

“I’ve had excellent instruction.”

He smiled.

It changed his face enough that I had to look away.

At the door, he asked whether I wanted him to call the next day.

He asked.

That was what stayed with me after he left.

Later, while my mother washed the last two glasses, I checked my phone for a message that hadn’t arrived yet.

I knew then that what I wanted from him had begun to change.