Her five-minute artwork is good enough that anyone would want to hang it on their wall. This time, the dry laugh bubbles through my lips. Sounds more like a scoff, but I’m a little pleased something made it through the numbness.
Leanne smiles at me, as if she understands the joke, and then taps her paintbrush in the ravine’s floor. “Some people can’t climb mountains because they don’t start on level ground like everyone else. They start in the bottom of a dark hole. But climbing up to sea level is as great a feat as any climber reaching the mountain summit.”
My gaze catches on the shadowed depths near her paintbrush, and the one tiny dot she just placed. Me. I’m the dot. I never got the chance to start on a level playing field, so mygoodwill always be behind.
I glance up at the therapist. The blue paint globs in her hair and smudges down her neck, but she looks strangely wonderful. Pretty sure I love her and hate her at the same time; it’s a new experience for me.
Leanne touches my shoulder lightly and another faint energy connection floods into me. “Youaredoing a good job, Red, even if you can’t see it. But your good won’t look like anyone else’s. Terrifyingly bad things happen in life, but that doesn’t make it your fault.”
My breath catches, and a tremor runs through my stained hands. Her message is obvious, light shining through dark storm clouds. I glance down at the blue on my fingertips and try to rub more off on my canvas. When I’ve wiped my hands clean, Leanne slides more tubes beside my canvas. I pick up the red tube and squeeze a dollop onto my finger.
It swishes across the blue smears, creating purple hues in the thickest parts and crimson scratches elsewhere. My life in two dimensions. A jagged breath works through my chest, making me heave and I pause, letting the oxygen work into my paralyzed lungs before reaching for a turquoise shade. Rickon joins the painting in softer thumb strokes, edges feathered. And Callisto? Black lines at the bottom, like Leanne’s shadows, touching the other colors at points, but uncertain.
A tear trickles down my cheek, as cold and uncontained as the rain outside. Must be the meds.
I slump forward, and the easel clatters as it falls.
Even if my decisions led Zack to prison, I’m the one who got him out originally. And I did that because I had a clear goal. I wanted to be an actress and find my alphas, and ever since I did, I’ve been drifting in survival mode. And that was all I could do—sometimes survival is enough.
But I’m a woman who functions best with a plan, not with this mindless wallowing.
For someone like me, climbing out of a cavern, and then climbing a mountain, is harder than for any regular mountain climber. But haven’t I been climbing this entire time? I’ll only fail if I stop.
If I can’t break Zack out of prison by infiltration because everyone knows my face, then I’ll put my fame to good use.
I straighten, staring at the four hues on my canvas. “We’ll go to the press,” I declare. My voice sounds thin behind my icy shell, but it cracks enough for me to reclaim a hint of myself. “Rickon. Get me a tent and a sleeping bag, ’cause I’m gonna camp outside the prison. Calli, go see a judge. Make it look like you’re appealing.” Warmth burns in my cheeks, the first I’ve felt all day. “I mean appealing the case or overturning it, whatever. Because, uh, yeah, I wasn’t referring to your looks.” Fuck my stupid tongue. He’s attractive enough without trying.
Callisto grins and nods. “I’ll buy us some time.” The suave alpha comes over and rests his ass on the table, taking my blue-stained hands in his. “We’re all here for you, gorgeous. You and Zack.”
“Thanks.” I roll my lip through my teeth as I consider. “Not just Zack. All the ferals. They need a different justice system.” I point to Leanne’s painting. “Because they’re climbing out of canyons too.”
“That’s—” Calli pauses, blinks twice and makes a sharp noise in the back of his throat. “—so true.”
I nod and collapse back onto Rickon’s chest.
His arms tighten around my waist. “I’ll draft the media statement, Biscuit. Don’t push yourself. All we need to know is that you haven’t given up.”
I tuck my head into him and stroke his slender hands. I guess between my heat and my meltdown, I really frightened him. “It’s hard to think,” I admit.
Leanne hums and eyes me up and down before turning to Dr Wood. “I think we have a few things to discuss, like reducing Red’s dosage. Don’t you agree?”
Yeah, definitely leaning more toward love for this crazy lady. I reach out mechanically and grab the packet of wet wipes on thetable, passing them to Leanne. It’s as much of an apology as I can muster right now. She smiles and drags her chair over. “Can you help me with the cleanup, since your hands already have paint on them?”
I snicker and sit up while she tips her bird’s nest hair forward. Can’t believe she just did a therapy session with this much paint running across her scalp.
I’m on my eighth towelette, wiping Prussian Blue off her neck, when a staff member pops her head around the door. “So sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got an urgent message for Callisto Wren. His office is trying to track him down.”
Calli dives a hand into his pocket to grab his phone, and his face pales as he reads his messages. When he looks up, I tense, waiting for the sledgehammer to knock me down again.
“Zack’s in the hospital.”
Chapter twenty
Red
Callisto holds the door open as I stride into the hospital lobby, my heart in my mouth. We left immediately, but it still took sixty minutes to get here with rush-hour traffic. Probably cracked my teeth from grinding them in fury at the delay. Once the nurse at the front desk looks up the information and gives us a floor and room number, I break into a run, and my alphas chase after me.
A prison guard stands outside Room 209, and he sweeps us with a critical gaze. “You’ll have to sign the visitor register before you can go in,” he says gruffly.
