For a moment, the pair of them simply stared at each other. Years ago, they would have been pressed tight, as close to sisters as friends could get. Neither would have let the other wait in a hospital room alone.
The hollow in Isobel’s chest grew a little wider.
Across the hall, Avi’s door clicked open, and Dane stepped out. The family leapt into motion, crossing the hall to replace him at Avi’s side, a cluster of Mylar balloons trailing behind them.
Esther abandoned her crayons on the floor, leaving June to sweep them back into their canvas pouch while her daughter rushed to her dad. Dane picked Esther up and squeezed her tight, landing a kiss on her stickered cheek. “You good to keep her a little longer?” he asked June, who nodded, glancing back to where Isobel sat frozen.
“Yeah, I got her.”
When the door closed behind the last of the Dawson clan, Dane sank hard into a chair next to Isobel, rubbing his face in his hands. He wore exhaustion like a coat.
“What did Avi say?” Isobel hadn’t meant to jump on the question so fast, but she was practically vibrating with anxiety, the nerves running a current of stress down every one of her limbs. “Did he know where Lenny was going?”
He shook his head, not even bothering to look up. “They were following her trail,” he muttered.
The trail of wildflowers.
“What happened?” Isobel pressed, laying a hand to the center of Dane’s back as she forced her words to slow, to meet him where he was. Dane was grieving too, his brother’s involvement its own kind of loss.
“They were attacked by something inhuman,” he said slowly.
A chill skated down Isobel’s spine. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Dane’s lungs expanded beneath her touch as he turned his face. “Avi said it looked like a woman, but… wrong.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?”
Something in his lowered tone made the hairs on Isobel’s arms stand up.
“Do you remember the fight Lenny and I got into before the wedding?” A new weariness fell over Dane as the words rolled out. “After I learned what he did, or tried to do, to your sister, I reported him to the sheriff. Lenny got so angry with me. We fought, and I… I told him not to come to the wedding.”
Isobel had forgotten about the tension between the two brothers in the days leading up to Dane’s wedding.
“When I saw Lenny go into the chapel that night, I followed him. I wanted to believe he wouldn’t hurt her.”
“I know,” Isobel said softly.
Dane squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his thumbs to hiseyelids in clear frustration. “I can still see her. So wild. Radiant and terrible… almost inhuman, the way she wielded the vines.”
Isobel’s heart tripped a beat, and she silently willed him to stop.Don’t say it.
“What am I supposed to think, Isobel? Avi goes looking for Eva, and comes back with an unbelievable story and wounds no one in this damn hospital can explain!”
Isobel felt like a live wire, her panic sparking. “It wasn’t her.”
Dane searched her face with hungry eyes. “Tell me I’m crazy, then,” he roughed out. “Tell me there isn’t a glaring common thread in these stories.” He glanced to the nurses’ station and lowered his voice. “Tell me the missing puzzle piece isn’t your sister.”
Alarm beat a drum in her chest. He couldn’t know this. She’d spent too many years covering Eva’s tracks, afraid of what might happen if Dane Walker knew the truth about what had happened to him that night.
“You can’t even say it,” he breathed out.
“You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Dane countered, growing more agitated. “Isobel, I woke up in this very hospital with a scar on my chest. No wound! I know you were there, and I know it was traumatic for you too. That’s why I’ve let you dodge my questions. I thought it was too painful. I didn’t want to make you relive it, because I love—” He broke off, but Isobel heard what he’d left unspoken.
I love you.
