“You said you trusted me.” He programmed coffee for himself, or what came as close to coffee as they could manage.
“I do. I really do.”
“Eat some of that now. Did you sleep better the rest of the night?”
“I didn’t dream at all after. I want to do chores, like you said.”
“We’ll get to all that. Doc said your ankle would be sore.”
“A little, but it’s not bad. I wrapped it again like he said after I took a shower, and I can walk on it without it hurting.”
“Young bones.” He smiled at her. “No headaches, dizziness?”
She began to relax and eat as she decided he just wanted to check on how she felt.
“Uh-uh. I want to go out and walk around, see if I remember anything, you know?”
Watching her, he sipped some coffee. “You haven’t remembered anything more?”
“Not exactly.”
He nodded, then took a ’link out of his pocket. “I want you to look at something. Someone. And tell me—you’ll be honest because we trust each other—if you remember her.”
“Okay, but I don’t think I really know anybody except you guys.”
Her first thought when she looked at the screen was she liked the girl’s hair, all bright and red. And then …
Her heart began to bang, and her skin went ice-cold. For a minute—it seemed like forever—she couldn’t breathe, only gasp for air that wouldn’t come.
It all fell onto her, a collapsed building hurtling down with bricks and steel and jagged glass rushing to bury her. From a distance, she heard a voice, but just kept shaking her head.
“No, no, no, no.”
“Dorian, you’re safe. Dorian, no one’s going to hurt you. Look at me now, just look at me.” Sebastian had a grip on her arms, kept talking as he leveled down to draw her wide, shocked eyes to his.
The panic attack ripped, turning her face sickly gray, racking her with shudders.
“You need to breathe in, breathe out.”
“Can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Look at me, look right at me and breathe, nice and slow. There you go now, that’s the way. In and out. You’re safe. I’m right here with you.” He flicked a warning glance at one of the kids who started to wander in—and sent her scuttling away again.
“Good girl. You’re all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”
He watched the first tear slide down her cheek and considered it an improvement over the wild-eyed shock.
“I’m going to get you some water. I’m just going right there and getting you some water.”
“I remember. I remember.”
“Yes, I can see that. Just sit, sit and breathe.”
As he got the water, he cursed himself. Had he gone too fast? Should he have given her more time? And what in God’s name would he do if this child was somehow responsible or complicit in the death of another child?
He brought her the water, sat, looked at her face. And simply couldn’t believe it. Yes, even children were capable of killing, he certainly knew that to be tragically true.
But not this one. Not this one with the desperate eyes shedding mournful tears.
“Can you tell me what you remember?”
“Mina.” Her hand shook as she lifted the glass, so she gripped it with both. “Mina. I forgot.”
“What happened to Mina?”
“She got away. Did she get away? She ran, she ran so they wouldn’t find me. In the rain. I fell, I fell, I hurt my leg, my ankle. I fell, I fell, and she ran so they’d run after her. We got out, we got out, but they were coming, and I fell. Did she get away?” She put the glass down with a rattle, grabbed his arm. “Is she here? Is Mina here, like me?”
“No, she’s not here. You and Mina got out? Of what? Of where?”
“Of the Academy.” Tears flooded now, and she laid her head on the table, racked by them. “Oh God, oh God, I remember.”
She told him pieces and in fits and starts. He clamped down on his outrage, knowing if he let it come, he’d only frighten her.
Finally, she knuckled at her swollen eyes, and those eyes pleaded with him. “Can you find her? Can you help me find her? She’s going to call her parents. She said they’d come.”
He stroked her hair. “You need to be strong. It’s so much to ask after all you’ve been through. But you’ve already shown you’re strong. I’m so sorry, Dorian. Mina didn’t get away.”
“They caught her? No, no, we got out, and if they took her back…” Her face went blank, and those pleading eyes blank.