“He’s our cat.” From the way she smiles—so wide and proud—I think she has fifty teeth instead of thirty-two. My sister is a little shark.
“What the hell is a cat doing in the hospital?” I begin feverishly looking around, trying to find where the constant mewing is coming from.
Leila drops to her knees and peeks under the bed. “C’mon, Midnight boy, come to mommy,” she coos to whatever creature is under the bed. A black, skinny, and ugly as fuck cat slowly crawls outside. And when I say ‘ugly’ I mean it. It’s missing its left eye and ear, half of its face scratched to hell and back, and there are scars all over his body. But then he looks up, right into my eyes, I can clearly see the unbroken spirit in those green of his. He’s defiant and strong.
I instantly love the ugly bastard and crouch next to him on the floor, stretching my hand for him to sniff.
“How did you bring him here?” I ask as I make a move to pet the skinny thing, but he lets out a loud hiss and jumps on the bed. Settling on Archie’s stomach, he forms a furry ball and starts purring.
Leila’s chuckle soothes my worried soul—I haven’t heard her laugh for a long time.
“Midnight loves only Stephan. He tolerates me but loves him.” She makes at attempt to pet the ungrateful bastard, but he lets out a loud hiss, and she drops her hand with another laugh. “My powerful friend owed me a favor, so he made a huge donation to the hospital, I guess. So they let me have the cat.”
Huh, the same mysterious person who arranged the doctor and the chopper. I need to look into him when I get a chance.
Leila probably senses my thoughts because she sighs loudly and says, “No, don’t waste your time. It’s someone powerful I did a favor for, so he did a favor for me in return. Nothing to dig there, honestly. He lives very far from us and is not a threat. In fact, he is probably one of the good guys.” Then she adds sheepishly, “I think.”
“Was he connected to the shooting?”
“Yes and no.” She chews on her lips before responding—a habit she’s had since she was a toddler. “He gave me some insight that put a few bad people in jail. One of them got out, and here we are.” She spreads her arms.
“So he is responsible for it.” It’s not a question, but also, I’m not sure what I’m dealing with here.
“Not really.” She fixes the pillow under Archie’s head and tucks the blanket into his sides. “I sought him out for that information because I needed to know the truth. And the truth turned out to be very convenient for him, so he didn’t mind sharing.”
The man responsible for Archie’s wounds, was working alone. And he indeed was Leila’s stalker who wanted to punish her for ruining his criminal life. We found evidence of everything in the motel room two towns down where he’d been camping since the article about him came out.
Alex told me about the feeling he had when he went to her house, but I didn’t pay it enough attention. Archie being shot is one hundred percent my fault even if I didn’t pull the trigger myself. But I can’t go down that road now, not when Leila’s smiling for the first time in forever.
“Where did you even find that ugly thing?” I jerk my thumb at the purring cat.
“By the cabin in the woods. The other day when Jake was here, I asked him to go to the cabin and look for the cat. And here we are.” She shrugs, and I won’t lie—I’m surprised to learnabout her asking Jake. And a little offended. But I guess they connected on some sort of different level that day, so maybe it’s a good thing for the both of them.
“Stephan said,” she continues, “he’d been coming around to sit on the porch with him before I got there, and then he became jealous and disappeared for a few days.” She turns to me. “Stephan was worried sick. Legit was checking out the window every ten minutes to see if he came back.”
“What’s that thing with Archie and Stephan?” I ask before I forget.
“Ask him yourself when he wakes up,” she answers with a smile and turns back to look at the motionless man and the cat who suddenly looks up, letting out the loudest mew of all of them.
The monitor beeps, and we both jump. Leila jumps higher. In fact, she flies across Archie and lands by his side, peering at his face.
“Stephan,” this fucking name again, “are you awake?”
A nurse comes rushing in and orders Leila to get out of her way. My sister moves, a scared look on her face, her eyes wide. Another nurse rushes in, followed by a doctor.
“His BP is dropping,” one of them reports, and they start firing medical terms at each other.
I glance at Leila—her lower lip begins trembling, and I’m at her side in an instant, quickly pulling her into a hug. She doesn’t say a word, nor do I offer any words of hope. I don’t know if they’d be truthful.
Chapter Thirty
ARCHIE
“I understand now,”comes the whisper of the voice that’s been holding me together for the past couple of months.“And I want you to know that if you leave, I’m not staying. Call it childish, call it stupid. But you heard me—I am not staying.”
That’s not right. I don’t know why exactly, but I get a feeling deep in my bones that it’s not right.
To think of it, I don’t feel my bones. I don’t feel anything. I’m in an ocean of nothingness, and it feels amazing.
