“It’s okay,” Jaeger says at the same time I say, “We’re good.”
We clasp hands. My knuckles throb from hitting him, but the pulsing pressure feels good.
“Your car or mine?” I ask.
“Mine.”
I get into Jaeger’s car without another word. A few minutes later, we’re roaring down the highway.
I feel him watching me, but he doesn’t say anything. He lets the silence hang between us. Leaving me to wrestle with the questions I don’t want to answer.
Did Bella try to kill herself? To escape me?
When we get back to the Metropolis house, Atticus takes one look at us and sighs. I’m no longer bleeding, but my black eye speaks for itself, and half of Jaeger’s face is swollen.
“How is she?” I say.
“Better than you. But no change.” Atticus doesn’t tell me that fighting is a waste of time and energy. He doesn’t have to. I know it in my bones.
I return to watching over Bella. I wish I were a better man, but I’m not. I wish I could deserve her.
But I never will.
31
Kaiser
* * *
Day and night pass with no change in Bella. I move an armchair close so I can sit by her bed. Atticus sends all but his most trusted nurses away. They check her vitals every hour on the hour.
The Poisoner made good on his promise and gave Atticus Shoshonna Bosco’s journals. Atticus and I pore over them and found the ones that have notes about Bella’s health episodes. He made copies of the most helpful passages for himself. The rest of the journals I stacked beside Bella and me. I find the happiest entries and read them aloud.
There’s an entry about Benjiro taking the family to the city to see the cherry blossoms. According to the diary, Bella preferred to chase the ducks. The journal entries end in springtime, thirteen years ago. That’s when Shoshonna died. I don’t want the story to end that way, so I close the journal and say, “She loved you.”
I never knew my mother. I’d like to think she was a kind woman; she probably wasn’t. But when I was reading the journals, I could feel the love like a motherly presence. Like someone who loved me deeply was standing by my side.
My brother calls, asking for an update.
Bella lies still as a corpse. I’ve learned to put my hand on her chest to make sure she’s breathing. “Still the same.”
“Elodie sends her love. She wants to know if there’s anything we can do.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“All right.” A pause, like he’s thinking. “She’s more than a job, isn’t she.” It’s not a question.
“Yes.” She’s more than a job. More than an alliance.
She is everything.
“She doesn’t want me,” I tell him. “I’m the brute she has to marry.”
“Eh, you can’t be sure about that.”
I snort. I am a brute, and he knows it.
“Bitches love brutes.”
