“How are you feeling, sir?” one asked.
“Can someone call the doctor?” spoke another.
“We have patrols all over the city who’ve been told the woman’s description. It won’t be long—”
“That’s enough,” Harrison rasped out, sitting up and wincing. He waved his hand weakly to shoo them out. “Thank you for—”
“You can call the doctor, but give him some space,” Roy ordered. The others nodded and filed out of the room, with only Roy lingering behind. Outside the door, Sophia overheard a heated discussion between the officers and the hospital staff about keeping Harrison’s identity secret and the hall private, and she squeezed the armrests of her chair beside Harrison’s bedside. Even if they’d escaped the Legendary, the Bargainer was still at large. This night was far from over.
“Thanks,” Harrison breathed to Roy.
“Grace, can you shut the door?” Roy asked.
Grace jolted behind them, as though surprised Roy was askingherto do something, rather than the other way around. Then she shook her head and did as requested.
Harrison let out what looked like a painful chuckle. “I don’t even get a moment of rest before—”
“With all due respect, sir, we don’t have time for that,” Roy told him. “Actually, Grace, could you go get Enne and Levi? They’re down the hall looking for Del—”
“Anything else you need me to fetch, Officer? Water? Cafeteria food?” Grace snapped, crossing her arms.
“Water would be great, yes,” Roy said, smirking.
At first, Sophia suspected that Grace was tired and wrung out, like the rest of them, and that she was irritated because she’d prefer to continue napping in the corner. But then Grace threw her arms up angrily. “You know these whiteboot friends of yours didn’t go looking for you when you went missing, right? That they’re not really your friends?”
Roy faltered awkwardly and shot a nervous look at the closed door. “I know that—”
“Chances are at least some of them knew about Hector’s cover-up, so just because they’re all smiles with you now doesn’t mean—”
“You don’t think I—”
“We’reyour friends. We’re the ones who love you.” She paused for a moment, seeming to realize what she’d said. Then she flushed and continued her onslaught, “And when tonight is over, you don’t get to leave. You don’t get to—”
“Grace,” Roy cut in. “You’re right. I know all that. I haven’t let my guard down. And I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
“Good,” she gritted out.
He beamed. “And I love you, too.”
Grace flushed deeper and made a noise like a grunt. “You can’t just... They don’t...” Then she scowled. “I’m getting Enne and Levi. And the water.” She opened the door and slammed it behind her.
Normally, Sophia would’ve laughed at such a demonstration, but it only reminded her that she had something to say, too. She knew, logically, that her words could wait. They weren’t as important as security, as surviving this endlessly long, damned night. But after seeing Jac one last time in the House of Shadows, she was desperate to cling to the people she had left. She had Delaney and Poppy—friends she’d never expected but cared about dearly. She had, at least a little bit, the people in this room, though she knew some better than others.
But she didn’t have family. And family was important to her. As a Torren, family was everything.
Harrison made a sorry excuse for a father. And the idea of being the product of two Families, of sharing blood with Charles and Delia as well as Vianca Augustine, scared her, like monstrousness was coded in her, an entire identity valued in drugs and poker chips. Not to mention the omerta talent and how unspeakable that was, that Harrison could’ve cast it on his own daughter. That should she get her memories back, Sophia might share that power, too.
Harrison was flawed, and broken, and monstrous in at least a few ways. But he was reckoning with that, and the thought of it left Sophia with something she hadn’t had in a long time—hope.
Harrison glanced at her like he wanted to say something about this, too, but Roy spoke up.
“Enne, Levi, and Sophia think they’ve found a lead on how to finish the Bargainer,” Roy told Harrison. “How to break the game.”
In the corner of the room, Harvey let out a strange, strangled noise. He’d been so quiet that everyone had seemingly forgotten he was present.
“Narinder, can you take him somewhere else?” Sophia asked.
Narinder pursed his lips but nodded. Wordlessly, he yanked Harvey up by his shoulder and guided him outside.
