Hold Me Like a Breath (35 page)

“There has never been an attack by one Family on another. Never. Whatever remains of the Landlow Family is in no position to attack anyone.” He turned his back and left.

I put my head down on the arm of the chair, caring very little about the water that was streaming off me onto the ornate wood. “You've … got to …,” I insisted.

And then I blacked out.

It was Kun who woke me. Carrying me not so gently up to a bedroom and setting me on unsteady feet inside the door where Mrs. Zhu stood with a smile and Char waited with eyes of questions.

“A fairy tale.
She
is why you wanted a fairy tale,” his mother said, and Char just ducked his head in agreement. She seemed amused as she turned to me, “Can we get you anything else? Did you drink the tea?”

“He won lissin.” My words were slurring, my hands felt heavy when I rubbed my eyes.

“Perhaps in the morning. Things always seem clearer in the morning.”

“It'snot safe.”

“My father's security is the best there is. No one's getting in.” It was the first time Char had spoken directly to me. His voice sounded different here. More formal. Sharp enough to cut through my mental fog.

At least, just long enough for me to meet his eyes and say, “I did.”

“Yes, but I watched on security monitors. You fell the whole way—you were no threat, no reason to go out in that weather,” said Kun. His voice reminded me of the snick of a knife or the edge of a razor.

“No one else will get in,” said Char with a frown.

“Promise?” I whispered.

“You're safe,” he answered. Which wasn't my concern at all.

“I'll be at your door,” said Kun.

It wasn't a comforting statement; it made Char flinch. “Get changed and I'll come sit with you … if that's okay.”

I nodded.

“Sleep well,” said his mother.

They left. And sleep was my only option. Not really optional at this point. My vision blurred. My mouth tasted thick with herbal tea and blood, either because I'd bitten my tongue or my gums were bleeding.

There was dry clothing on a chair. I stumbled as I shucked off wet jeans and my painted-on shirt only to wince at the bruised horror that was my skin. I fumbled with sleeves and pants and had to pause and rest my eyes but finally managed to get into the cotton pajamas.

I could see why Mrs. Zhu had needed help preparing the guest room. The bed started with a standard box spring and mattress, but then a foam topper. A feather bed? It was hard to tell through the thick weave of the fleece sheets. And two blankets. A down comforter, a quilt, and a fluffy throw on top of that, then a crocheted afghan. The bed frame was tall to begin with, but with the towering confection of layers, it would have been impossible to get into it without the step stool waiting beside it.

Just crossing the room was hard—staying upright, keeping my eyes open, figuring out the coordination required to lift my feet and climb from the stool onto the bed.

I skipped all the covers. I was alternating between teeth chattering and sweltering. The idea of climbing under them was too much effort. I lay on top, sinking into the softness, drowning in a froth of bedding. Drowning in exhaustion.

There was a light knock and the lock disengaged with a click, the knob began to turn. The door slid open, the hall lights illuminating the silhouette of a male as he slunk into the room.

“Maeve?”

Relief came in a wash of fatigue and dizziness. It made my eyes fill and my fingers unclench.

“Do you swear you're …” I thought he might say “Penny.“
It looked like his mouth started to form my name, but he swallowed the word down and after a pause, finished with, “… not diabetic?”

I nodded. Just enough of a head tilt up / head tilt down to count as a nod. I could feel the adrenaline fading from my system. My heartbeat slowing, my fingertips going cold. It left me feeling off-kilter, disoriented, intoxicated. My vision was warping, my mouth tasted like blood. Sleep pulled at me like a riptide, and I ached. Everywhere. Like I'd been run over, like I was being buried alive under the pressure created by the bruises.

“I'm not lying,” I whispered. “Not anymore.”

“I know we have so much we need to talk about—”

“You've gotto make your father …” The slurring was back, the aggressive pull of sleep.

“I will. I promise. Can you rest? You're so exhausted it's painful to look at you, my Maeve.”

I tried to smile at his “my,” but was too tired to make it convincing. “I—you—” My words were interrupted by yawns, by long blinks where I shut my eyes and forgot to open them again.

At some point I reached out and he'd sat on the edge of the bed beside me. I opened my eyes to see my head on a pillow in his lap and a crocheted afghan wrapped around me. He stroked my hair. It was still wet. I closed my eyes.

“Maeve?” Char was saying things. Asking things. But I couldn't remember them. Couldn't remember how to open my eyes.

“Maeve! Wake up. Please.”

It felt a journey of miles to raise my eyelids, to look up at his bowed head, his gentle eyes. He whispered, “Your nose is bleeding, you're shaking. I need to get you to the clinic.”

“I need to warn them.” I tasted blood on my lips.

“But … are
you
okay?” he asked.

I didn't answer. We didn't need another lie between us.

“What did you do?”

The door opened so suddenly that I heard the words before I registered the three people crowding into the bedroom. Char's parents and Kun.

Mr. Zhu whirled on his wife, “How long until your sedative tea wears off? We need answers.”

“Oh, now you want them?” I'd been aiming for attitude, but only managed yawning and pathetic. Char offered me his hand, but I ignored it and struggled into a wobbly sitting position on my own. It wasn't that I didn't want the comfort and support of his touch, it was that I needed to be taken seriously. If I looked like a lovesick girl, I endangered us all. “You drugged me?” The slurring suddenly made sense. The weight and demand of that sleep.

“It wasn't a drug,” said Mrs. Zhu. “Just a soporific herbal mixture to help you get some rest. You looked like you needed it.”

Mr. Zhu cleared his throat. “Explain why I'm getting calls from my men, telling me US Marshals are gearing up and heading here. Why are we being raided?”

“You're not,” I said, swallowing down the coppery taste of blood and blinking back dizziness. “You're being protected—because you're going to be attacked by my Family. The Landlow Family … or what's left of it.”

“If you truly are Penelope Landlow, prove it.”

This was easy enough. The proof was painted on my skin. I pushed up the sleeves of my borrowed shirt and held out my arms for inspection. I didn't look. I didn't want to see how bad it was. I was running on borrowed time, already starting to crash, and crash hard. Seeing the proof of my decline could crack the last of my strength and send me unconscious to the floor.

But when I heard the gasps, the “My dear girl” from Char's mom, and his own “Maeve—” in an exhale of panic, I let my eyes fall on my arms.

Pea-sized hail had left Ping-Pong-sized bruises. Handprints, nearly black, wrapped around my wrist like manacles. And over all this, like lace stenciled on my skin, was the pattern of the crocheted blanket—every stitch visible.

Mr. Zhu smiled at me. A sincere smile, and in it I saw I'd been appraised and passed some sort of test. His laugh reminded me of a crow's caw and gave me the shivers. “It seems I've underestimated you, Penelope. Kun—go alert the clinic; we'll be right there.”

“But the …” Whole sentences were too much effort. My head felt as weak as my body.

“Can you walk? Should we get a gurney?”

I shook my head. To one, both.

“I can carry her,” said Char.

I wanted to protest. Wanted to stand on my own feet and demand Mr. Zhu listen to me, but I could barely manage to stay conscious when Char's arms came around me. His mother leaned over to wipe my face with a tissue that came away saturated with red. My foggy mind remembered all of Mother's dire warnings about internal bleeding and intracerebral hemorrhage—all of Dr. Castillo's gentle lectures. A gurney would've been safer, but Char's arms were warm and strong and I felt so cold and weak.

“I've got you,” he whispered.

We were moving, going down stairs, Mrs. Zhu hurrying ahead to turn on lights as we entered a long hallway beside a dining room. The walls on both sides were nearly all glass—displaying security lights focused on a manicured rock garden, fading out on the slope down to a small bit of lawn, and beyond that, darkness where scrub brush bled into mountains. The view from the dining room was similar, but with a pool glowing blue against the dark sky. Parallel to those windows was a long sleek table of thick wood with edges that looked angular. Dangerous.

Mr. Zhu walked beside Char, studying me with curiosity and confusion. “Why did you come here? Why risk yourself? Why would you care what happens to my Family? Why side with mine over yours?”

“I know what it's … like to … lose loved ones. Because … I care for …” I let my head fall against Char's shoulder, let my gaze finish that sentence.

Mr. Zhu nodded thoughtfully, like I'd passed another test. “We retrieved your handbag, from beside the gate. Your cell phone was destroyed, but your …
diary
should be salvageable. I've had it set on a heater to dry.”

“Thank you.” I wanted to explain just how much I meant that, but the two words had already cost so much effort.

Then there wasn't time for any more discussion, because Kun was running down the hallway. “Sir! There's been a breach.”

A single terra-cotta tile slid off the roof to shatter on the rocks outside the hall.

And then there were flashes. The windows burst inward, glass slivers reflecting in the lights as they exploded into the room like lethal tears. Making my cheeks and hands sting, then bleed.

Boots followed glass through the window frames. Landed with hard thuds and crunches on the wood floor. Immediate gunshots—and a row of holes in the ceiling. Yells, commands, people running.

The arms holding me tightened, pulled me back against a firm chest, pulled me into the dining room and below the table. I didn't have the strength to do anything but keep my eyes open and breathe.

It was Char's scent in my lungs and his voice in my ear, “I've got you.”

But it was Garrett's voice across the room yelling, “Dad, stop! Wait! I thought we agreed we don't have to kill them—just get the tech.”

It shouldn't be him. I'd left him with Whitaker. They let him escape, and now he was here. Not arrested. Not safe. Here.

Al's curses told his youngest to “shut up and obey.”

“But this wasn't the plan.”

Laughter. Goose-bump-raising laughter. “When have I ever told
you
my plans? Jake, Hugh, spread out. Find them.”

There were footsteps, more shots. Screams. Somewhere away from here others were returning fire. In some other room of the mansion, the battle was escalating. I hoped not wherever Kun and Char's parents had escaped to.

There were still two pairs of boots in the room. And our two pairs of bare feet. It wasn't odds I liked.

My vision began to flicker. Distorted like light through a prism. Like light through the shattered crystal of the chandelier that lay beside my feet.

Which were bleeding from either ten or a hundred small cuts.

My head was heavy. So heavy. I'd tipped it back against Char's chest, but gravity didn't like that. It wanted to fall forward, loll on my neck like a yo-yo.

“Stay with me, Maeve. Please.”

There were boots approaching my feet. Boots crouching. A gun. In my face.

And then panic. Scrambling. Char pushing me away. Behind him. Punching.

And Garrett. Garrett who shouldn't be here. His nose was bleeding and his eyes were shell-shocked, horrified. “Penny! Are you okay? Dad, hold your fire. They've got Penelope.”

There was an instant of quiet. Unnatural quiet where gunshots still echoed in my ears and dust and plaster and debris seemed suspended in the air.

“She's
here? This
is where she's been hiding?” the narrator of my nightmares asked. “How convenient. Shoot her.”

Garrett's crouch fell into knees down, his face nearly level with mine and so white. “You
knew
she was alive?”

“You want to be a Ward, act like one. Shoot her!”

“Please. Don't,” begged Char.

Even Garrett's lips looked bloodless beneath his nosebleed. Mine was bleeding too. Maybe. Everything had taken on a hazy red tint. He shook his head. “I won't. This is
Penny
.”

I couldn't see Al, but I could imagine that snarling smile when he said, “If you won't, I'll make it a clean sweep of the Landlows. Never guessed the most useless would be the hardest to eliminate.”

Char was pushing me behind him, trying to communicate something with frantic gestures, but I couldn't focus on anything but Garrett and the heartbreak in his voice as he
had
to accept the truth. “Clean sweep? Carter?
You
? But—”

“All that money the Landlows wasted sending you to fancy schools with Carter and you're dumber than an empty bullet shell. He showed up at Deer Meadow with gasoline and lighters, of course we killed him. Now. Shoot. Her.”

Garrett's face wavered, I thought he might vomit or faint; then his expression settled in lines of stone fury. He put his gun down and slid it across the floor away from his father. “No!”

There was a pop, and a chunk of wood struck Char's shoulder. I followed this backward to find a bullet hole in the table by my head. I rolled my eyes forward again to measure the blood. Had Al shot him, or was it just the ricochet? Char wasn't
holding still for me to see, and my vision was so red. My hands too heavy to lift. He was pulling me backward, out the other side of the table. Maneuvering on his knees around a tangle of chair and table legs, pieces of plaster. One hand on me. The other on Garrett's gun.