Inquest (28 page)

“Mom,” I beg,
“Mom, please don’t hurt him.”

“You deserve
to suffer like I have, Libby.” She isn’t moving toward him.
Yet.

“I have
suffered, Mom. I know you loved Dad, but so did I.”

“It’s not the
same. You were just a child. You couldn’t have loved him like I
did.”

She can ferret
out the truth behind gossip in a second or locate anything touching
a natural element of the world, but she can’t see anything beyond
her own selfishness. “You say Dad was your whole life, well, he was
my whole life too. He cared about me when I knew you didn’t. He
tucked me in at night while you were out with your friends. He
kissed me when I got hurt and held me when I cried. He loved me. He
loved me so much that I never felt anything but safe and happy when
I was with him, not because of his power and prestige. I loved him
more purely than you ever did.”

My mother’s
beautiful face darkens under a mask of malevolence. Maybe that last
sentence wasn’t such a good idea. She takes several slow steps
toward Milo. He glances back and forth between us, unsure of what
to do. My mother doesn’t seem terribly concerned. “And what about
this one?” she asks. “Do you love him?”

She’ll know if
I’m lying. I’m good at hiding my emotions, but she is a master at
breaking through barriers. My throat is trying to strangle me, but
the curious look on Milo’s face despite what’s going on around him
dilutes my fear enough to think. Do I love him? I’ve doubted why
he’s with me, but despite ample opportunity to leave, he’s still
here. I know he’s hiding something big from me, and I’m scared to
death that really letting him in will only get him killed. My
hurricane of thoughts and emotions finally center on one simple
truth. Despite everything, I can’t think of anyone I would rather
be with than Milo.

“Do you love
him?” she demands as she moves forward.

My answer is
simple and honest. “Yes.”

The corner of
Milo’s mouth turns up without ever taking his eyes off my mother. I
want to kiss him more than anything right now, but the hateful
gleam in my mother’s eyes terrifies me. Milo holds his hand up to
her as she takes another step, but she won’t try to attack him
physically. Her focus draws her thoughts inward. I don’t wait.

My fingers
force themselves into the tiny space between the marble and my
ankle, and I heave it back .The edges dig into my flesh, staining
everything red. And all I accomplish is crumbling a few pieces.
This is taking too long! Terror for what she might be planning
spurs me forward. Pulling with my whole body, I try to simply yank
my foot from the rock. Fiery hot pain shoots up my leg, making me
scream. But I don’t stop. I wrench it again. Something pops and
grates. Seizing my Strength, I will the pain away and pull
again.

“Libby!” Milo
calls out, grabbing my shoulders. “Libby, stop it! Just stop, wait
a minute. You’re hurting yourself.”

“I can’t,” I
cry, “she’s going to hurt you.”

“No she’s not.
She’s not going to hurt me or you. Just calm down for a minute and
we’ll figure out how to get you out of here.”

“What?” I ask,
twisting around so I can see his face. He presses his hand against
my cheek, and then his eyes slide away from me to where he had been
standing a second ago. I follow them. My whole face lights up in
shock.

“What
happened?” I ask. For some reason my mother is lying of the floor,
looking very much like she’s unconscious.

“I’m sorry,
Libby, but I had to hit her.”

“You
what?”

He shrugs.
“When you screamed she lost her focus, and well, I saw my chance to
stop her, so I took it. Sorry. I’ve never hit a girl before.”

“Sorry? Milo,
don’t be sorry. She was about to kill you. I think that’s the one
exception to hitting girls.”

“I still feel
bad about doing it. She’s your mom,” he says.

I snort at
that and try to keep from grinding my teeth, this time from anger
instead of the pain pulsing up my leg. “Only by blood.” Standing up
from his employer, Manuel walks over to us. His hands are visibly
shaking, but his voice sounds quite cheerful. “Well, I’m glad
that’s over, Miss Libby. I have never seen anything quite like that
before.”

“What,
attempted murder?” I ask.

He grimaces
and shakes himself.

“Is she
alive?” I ask.

“Yes.” Manuel
sounds a little resigned at that prognosis. “I’ll have someone take
her to bed when I get the chance, but I think we have more
important matters to attend to right now, like getting you out of
the floor.”

“Yeah,” Milo
says, “we should probably do that before your mom wakes up.”

“Definitely,
but I’m not sure I can. I think I might have broken my ankle
trying. It hurts like hell right now. Strength is the only thing
keeping me from passing out,” I say. And even that isn’t working
very well. My vision swims in warning that I’m not going to be able
to hold the pain back much longer.

“Miss Libby,”
Manuel scolds, “you should know better than trying to pull a foot
out of solid marble by brute force. Strength does not make your
body impervious to injury. I should think you would be well aware
of that fact by now.”

“You would
think,” I mutter.

“How are we
going to get her out then?” Milo asks.

Manuel offers
him a patient smile. “The same way she got stuck there in the first
place.”

“You know how
to do that?” I ask.

“I have lived
with your mother for a very long time. I thought it wise to learn a
few of her tricks just in case I ever needed to defend myself,” he
says. “I would have helped you earlier, but even though I can
perform the feat, my talent is nothing close to your mother’s. I
need to be in physical contact.”

“Of course,
Manuel,” I say.

“Pay very
close attention so you can repeat it if the need ever arises again.
Which I’m sure it will, knowing you.” He smiles playfully like I am
five years old again, but this time there is real fear behind his
teasing. “Now, lay very still, Miss Libby. When I release your foot
the motion may be very painful.”

“Milo, if I
pass out, you’re going to have to carry me to the car again.
Sorry.”

“Again?”
Manuel asks.

“I was asleep,
not hurt,” I say matter-of-factly.

He nods, but
not convincingly. Placing his hands on the floor at either side of
my foot, he is about to start when Milo moves into place behind me.
Thank goodness. I don’t want to smack my head on the ground if I
faint. That would really top off my morning. Manuel settles back in
to start his work. I watch as the marble starts to twist and soften
under his gentle guidance. Every move he makes, every emanation of
power that flows from his body into the floor imprints itself on my
mind. I feel confident I can imitate him as I start to feel the
pressure on my ankle lessen. I can also feel the added pain
spreading through my body and cringe. I am not going to last much
longer.

“Hey,” Milo
says.

“What?” I ask,
glad for the distraction from the pain. My foot is going to pop
loose any second.

“I love you
too.”

The agony of
my foot coming free jolts me into unconsciousness.

Chapter 23

Helpless

The steady
beep-beep of medical equipment finally sinks into my brain and
pulls me back to the waking world in a nauseating sweep. Getting my
eyes open is another trick entirely although I don’t really want to
open them anyway. My breathing is picking up by the second,
reaching near panic very quickly. I need to wake up and find Milo.
He’s the only thing that will calm me down. My eyes feel like they
have lead weights on them. An image from a Jack the Ripper movie I
once saw assaults me, reminding me of how people used to put coins
on the dead’s eyes to pay the ferryman on their way to Hell. My
eyes flutter open immediately, no coins falling away like I feared.
Milo’s concerned face and the antiseptic walls of a hospital greet
me.

“Hey, you
finally decided to wake up,” Milo says.

“You brought
me to the hospital?” I gasp as I sit up. I hate hospitals. An
irrational desire to have Lance by my side grips me fiercely. He’s
been there every other time I’ve been hurt. He knows how to keep me
calm, to stop the panic. Thinking about him only adds to my pain,
but I can’t help wish he were here with me now. My breathing
rapidly starts climbing to hyperventilation. My head starts
swimming, and I have to grab the side of the bed to keep from
tipping over drunkenly. One thing I do notice is that my leg feels
much, much better. The bandage indicating a needle prick on my arm
might have something to do with that.

“Libby, calm
down. Your ankle was dangling like a loose tooth. What else was I
supposed to do?” Milo pulls his chair close to my bed and brushes
my hair back from my face in slow, soothing motions. Every stroke
takes my panic down a notch. “You slept through the worst part, at
least. Your leg has already been X-rayed and the bones set back in
place. We’re just waiting on the doctor to start putting on your
cast.”

My vision
begins to clear as I tap my Naturalism and force my breathing to
slow. I lock my gaze on Milo to stave off another wave of panic,
forcing away thoughts of Lance. It takes me a moment to focus
enough to process what Milo just said. “A cast? Manuel must have
died laughing about this.”

Milo grins.
“Just a little.”

“He’s
hopeless,” I mumble through my clenched jaw.

“Funny,” Milo
says with a laugh, “that’s exactly what he said about you.”

Maybe it’s the
drugs, or Milo’s ability to somewhat distract me, but I laugh too.
Another broken bone. What does that make now, thirteen? Unlucky
thirteen, that would definitely make sense. My morphine-induced
laughter subsides by the time the door pushes open. I’m shocked to
find a familiar face when it opens all the way.

“Doctor
Layton?”

“Good
afternoon, Libby. It’s always nice to see you, though you do know
you can come say hello without breaking a bone first, don’t you?”
he says. His words are as cheerful as they’ve ever been. I’m
immediately suspicious. Everyone else is at least a little nervous
around me. What exactly did he give me? My eyes narrow as I scour
him for a clue. He notices my reaction and sighs. “Sorry, Libby.
I’ll admit that when they told me you were here I was nervous, but
seeing you laid out unconscious, it sorts of takes away the ‘you’re
going to kill everyone’ vibe. You’re the same girl I’ve treated a
dozen times before.”

There is no
deception in what he’s saying. I manage to relax a little more.
Maybe this will work on the kids at school, too. It’s hard to be
afraid of the gimpy loser kid hobbling around on crutches. “Thanks
for seeing me, Dr. Layton. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else
trying to fix me up.” Seriously. Hospitals freak me out bad enough
without having to go through it with a stranger.

“Nobody knows
your bones better than I do, that’s for sure.” He sits down on his
stool and starts the long process of casting my foot. After the
first few layers are in place, he says, “You’ll have to keep this
on for two or three weeks, but it looks like it should heal up
fine.”

“Two or three
weeks?” Milo asks. “That doesn’t seem like very long.”

“For a normal
person, it wouldn’t be, but for Libby it’s more than enough time.
Her Strength makes her heal faster than others,” he explains.

“Is that
usually how it works?” Milo asks.

Dr. Layton
nods. “To some degree. Everyone with Strength heals slightly faster
than those without it, but Libby has always astounded me. The first
time her dad brought her in, she had fallen out of a tree and
broken her wrist. I set it and cast it, and scheduled for her to
come back in three weeks to see how she was doing. Imagine my
surprise when the X-ray showed the break was completely healed.
Normally, Strength speeds up recovery by a couple of days at the
most. Not weeks.”

One more thing
to betray me as a freak. I’m the only one who thinks so,
apparently.

Milo has a
different opinion. “That’s awesome.”

“Very,” Dr.
Layton agrees.

Well, at least
they’re enjoying themselves. Their reactions do make me smile,
though, even if my hands are still shaking. Milo quizzes Dr. Layton
about the other weird things my body can do, like withstand more
extreme temperatures than others, take more damage before breaking
down, go without food or water for longer, and a few other bizarre
qualities that only I seem to possess. He keeps it up the entire
time Dr. Layton is wrapping me in plaster. I tune them out after a
while and try to think about nothing at all until this experience
is over. Milo’s fingers constantly stroking my arm make that pretty
much impossible.

Thinking about
him isn’t bad, either.

Hours later,
Milo carries me into my motel room and gently places me on the bed.
After giving me a couple more pain pills, he lies down next to me.
“How are you feeling?”

“About my leg,
or everything else?”

“About all of
it.”

“My leg is
feeling mildly better, and I don’t know what to think about my mom.
Confronting her didn’t go like I thought it would,” I say.

Milo motions
toward my foot with a half-smile. “Obviously not.”

I roll my
eyes. “That’s not what I mean. Actually, I figured I would probably
get hurt. What I meant was what she said. She really thought me and
my dad would make it through the Serqet alive. She wasn’t trying to
kill me, not that time at least. It doesn’t really change anything,
now, I guess, but…it makes me feel a little better. Is that
stupid?”

“No, of course
not, Libby. Your mom’s never going to win any parenting awards, but
at least you know she did love you in her own way,” Milo says.