Dad cleared his throat awkwardly and set his cutlery aside. “I didn’t want to tell you because it’s going to bother you.”
“What?” I whispered.
“Isaac McCormack.”
I felt dizzy. “What about him?”
Dad made a face as if the sword of Damocles was hanging over my head. “He’s not dead. Bill Luther said he has been seen around here. It appears he wants to finish what he didn’t do before.”
Suddenly, I could hear nothing but my heartbeat, a thunderous gallop in my chest. Blood rushed through my veins. For a few seconds, my rational thinking was paralyzed. Kjertan—or Rayk—must have shot Isaac, but not fatally wounded him. And Isaac obviously knew I was back home.
Dad reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry, Willa. That’s not all. Two of his accomplices are constantly hanging around Greenwich Street, watching the penthouse.”
Billy and Maury?
“I gave Bill Luther orders to arrest them immediately if they do anything conspicuous. If necessary, we’ll force a confession out of them.”
I jumped up. My mind was spinning and my throat tightened. Isaac couldn’t possibly still be alive! But what if he was? What if Nathan and the others had kept it from me to protect me? Or if they believed he was dead, but he was only unconscious?
I bit my knuckles until I tasted blood, but I couldn’t quell his voice inside me.
Stop crying, Willa Nevaeh Rae—you like that, don’t you? I wonder if Nath did that to you, you cheap little whore.
It was incomprehensible. I couldn’t move or speak. Within seconds, I turned into the lifeless shell I had been in the days after my release and well beyond.
Should I come visit you tonight, little lady?
“Willa? Willa Mouse?”
My dad’s voice came from a vast ocean without light. I noticed in passing that, despite my stillness inside, I was getting up and fleeing. I don’t remember where, but the ground suddenly seemed like a soft mass, the same mass that filled my head. My knees buckled.
Suddenly, Dad was standing over me and his face blurred, turning into Isaac’s.
“No!” I screamed and thrashed about, catching him somewhere. I heard him calling my name, but it sounded far away.
Willa! Willa! Willa! Calm down!
Be brave, my child.
Be brave…
Suddenly, everything around me dissolved. Just like in the weeks after my release when Nathan had given me the Remedji, the decoction of poppy, belladonna, and coca. Everything became soft and I sank into blackness. I became completely calm.
I was floating on a sea without waves, without water, and without memory. No time.
Mom is back but she doesn’t see me. I come from the bathroom on the Voyageur II about to go out onto the sun deck when I hear my parents arguing. They rarely argue and their loud voices frighten me. I quickly hide behind Alexandré’s luxury couch, which is right in front of me.
“Don’t lie to me, Ivy-Rose! You stopped taking the pills.” That’s my dad, he sounds irritated.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Mom sounds cool in comparison.
“They were in Willa Rae’s stuffed bunny—are you going to deny it?”
It’s quiet for a while, and in that silence, my heart is pounding in my throat. I hope Dad doesn’t betray me. Mom should never find out that I told him about our plan.
“We should turn around, Nicholas. The horizon is too dark and Willa is afraid of thunderstorms.”
“You want to go back so you can leave! So you can leave me! Where were you going anyway? To your mother or a lover I don’t know about?”
