I practically inhaled it.
“I knew where you were because I pretty much have control of every single camera in this area, and great computer programming that has even better facial recognition software,” Apollo answered. “I feel like y’all are my little ants. I keep an eye on every single one of you from morning until night sometimes to make sure you don’t die out here on your own.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Your fake wife is out of surgery and responding well despite the obvious,” Apollo said. “They’re very hopeful since she made it through the night.”
That made me happy to hear.
Since you could only have one person back in the ICU at the time, Nettie had gone. And I hadn’t argued. Because what right did I have to demand that I go instead of her own sister?
She’d said that she would update me and I could go home, but I hadn’t wanted to leave, just in case.
It wasn’t like I could do anything for her if shit hit the fan, but I almost felt like my presence here was required…just in case.
“That’s good,” I rasped. “Thank you for figuring that out.”
“She had over a thousand stitches,” Apollo said. “Did they tell you that?”
“They did,” I said. “They were able to set her arm well. She’ll be in a cast all the way up to her armpit for the next several weeks, if not months. Her concussion wasn’t a concussion at all. But they’re still watching that just in case.”
“That’s what I read from the medical reports,” Apollo said. “As to the reason I came down here, I decided that I needed to find the information myself. I have to be in their house to do that, though. And what better way to get them out of their house than to use this perfect opportunity of a hurt child?”
I hated that he was right.
“You’re going to sneak into their place?”
“I’m going to set fire to it.” Apollo’s eyes gleamed.
I blinked. “What?”
“Set fire to it.” He paused. “Which’ll then get firefighters involved. We’re going to have the lady behind call it in when she sees smoke.”
“Okay.” I shook my head. “What ever happened with the stuff they were burning?”
“They never got to light it because the old lady a house over from theirs reminded them that you couldn’t burn in the city limits. So they took everything back inside.” Apollo rubbed his hands together. “This place is so great for my brain. Y’all are coming up with so much shit that I get to deal with. I never get to do stuff like this at home.”
I would’ve glared at him had I had the energy.
As it was, I was barely putting one foot in front of the other.
Nine hours of sleep over three days was really fuckin’ with my head.
“Before you go.” Apollo stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “We need to talk about your sister.”
I stopped and turned fully to him. “What?”
“She’s been digging around a bit in your death,” he said. “Enough that it makes me think that she thinks you’re still alive.”
I gritted my teeth.
What the hell was wrong with her?
Neither one of us had been in a good position that day in that underground bunker. Why the hell couldn’t she just leave it alone? I had a lose-lose choice to make, and I made the one that would hurt my heart the least.
She lost her man, sure. But she got to keep her life. She got to keep our parents. She hadn’t lost years of her life in prison. She hadn’t had to make the decision between her fiancé and me. She hadn’t had to go through months of an undercover operation that involved her fucking daughter being violated.
And she certainly hadn’t had to lose her own goddamn kid in all of this.
