“At the hands of our father, my mother is now insane. The things he put her through, what she endured at his hands.” Quinn’s hands turn white as he squeezes his knuckles together. I can tell he’s uncomfortable with the memory. “Believe me, your mother had it easy. The shit we’ve done over the years, because of him, Hope. You didn’t want to be part of it. Nor would your mother had she known.”
“Easy? When did yours die, Quinn?” I ask. He scrunches his brow, a look of contrition coming as he nods at my argument.
“All right, she’s not dead. And we look after her. But she’s barely alive either. We watched what happened to her because of our father, just like you looked after yours.” He sighs at something, a blank expression settling “Cunt deserves to be rotting six feet under.”
That I agree with.
There was no hope of ever meeting my father. I didn’t even want to after watching how he broke my mother. And now, after these words from Quinn, it sounds like he broke theirs as well. He must have been a real nice guy.
A stillness creeps into the room, and I welcome it. My eyes drift closed for a moment, taking some time to process. My head still feels muffled, and the fear of where things are left with Benjamin hasn’t diminished, no matter this distraction.
“I couldn’t put my finger on it before, but now I know, it seems obvious.”
“What?” I murmur, fighting the sudden pull of sleep. He walks closer to the bed, eyes directed at mine until he’s so close I can see my own reflection in them.
“Our similarities. You intrigued me right from the start, but why come onto me at dinner that first night?”
“Benjamin.”
He chuckles and watches me watch him. “Threatened, was he?”
I sink back down to the bed, not entertaining a conversation about that. I'm too tired, and still very much on Benjamin’s side, for the moment anyway.
“That doesn’t matter now,” I mutter.
The ache in my body starts to intensify, the pain that was background noise rushing to the forefront of my mind. My eyes close, trying to shut it out for a moment or to force it back to the recesses.
“Do you need something?”
“Can you get Benjamin? Or the doctor?”
“Quinn?” Emily’s voice enters the room, but I don’t have the energy to open my eyes. “Hope needs to rest. Come on. We can come back.”
“I’ll send someone in, Hope.”
He doesn’t say anything more, and I know if I open my eyes the room will be empty.
A chill runs through me, disturbing my slumber, and my eyes flutter open. The room is still and quiet, and gloom surrounds me, low lamps the only light. The pain from earlier only lingers in my body rather than overriding my senses. I force my body to move, pushing through the slight grimaces to sit myself up.
Benjamin is sitting in a chair in the far corner of the room, a glass in his hand.
“Hi,” I offer, unsure of what to say.
He doesn’t answer, but I see him lift the glass to his lips. My heart starts to vibrate in my chest, but I notice there’s no beeping this time. Many of the machines from earlier have been removed. “How long was I asleep?”
“A few hours. You’re healing.” His words are clipped and offer no glimpse of emotion or insight into what he might be feeling. He gets up to leave, his body language defeated, shoulders slouched and his head hanging.
“Wait. Don’t go,” I plead. I don’t want to be left alone. And now I have a real fear that after I’m on my feet, I might be alone forever. Before he knew, when I was deceiving him, I could cope with the prospect of walking away with nothing and having to build my life from scratch. That was always a possibility when the aim was destroying Cane, but so much has changed. Benjamin’s reaction is one of them. After the beach house, I thought we’d be able to work through anything. “Please don’t hate me. Don’t shut me out.” My voice is weak.
He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t say anything, either.
Silence. He drinks again and keeps looking at me, bringing some amount of hope flooding back into me that he hasn't left. But time just stretches on with nothing but silence.
“Why did you step in front of that bullet, Hope?” It's so direct, I stutter for an answer in my mind.
“It was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do.”
More silence.
