"That was two thousand euros." My voice doesn't even sound like a voice anymore.
"Was that everything?"
"...Yes."
The toilet flushes again. Second pass. When she returns, she crouches beside me and takes my face in her hands. Her fingers are cool against my jaw.
Tears are streaming down her face. Steady and silent, dripping off her chin, landing on my chest. She doesn't wipe them. Doesn't acknowledge them. Acts like they don't exist.
"You're doing this," she says. Voice steady. Like she's already decided. "You're going through this, and I'm staying."
Another tear drops off her chin. Lands on my collarbone.
She doesn't flinch.
"You don't know what you're signing up for."
"Yeah, I do." She slides a cushion under my head, and a tear falls onto my cheek. She brushes it away with her thumb like it was sweat. Like it was nothing. "Now shut up and let me help you."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
William
DAY ONE IS hell.
The shaking gets worse before it gets better. By midday, I can't keep water down. Aoife brings me a glass every twenty minutes. Small sips. My stomach rejects them within seconds.
She holds a bucket under my chin with one hand and presses a cold cloth to the back of my neck with the other.
She doesn't flinch. Not once. Not when I'm retching so hard that tears stream down my face. Not when I soak through every shirt she puts me in. Not when the shaking gets so violent that my teeth crack together and I bite my own tongue hard enough to taste blood.
She gets me to the bedroom at some point. I don't remember how. I remember her arm around my waist. The hallway tiltingat impossible angles. The sound of my own voice saying things I can't recall.
She strips the sheets I've already ruined with sweat. Replaces them with blankets she's found somewhere.
I burn. Then I freeze. Then I burn again.
Aoife sits in the wooden chair she's dragged from the kitchen. She wrings out cloths in a bowl of cold water and places them on my forehead, my chest, the back of my neck. When the chills come, she piles blankets on top of me and keeps her hand on my arm.
"Talk to me," she says.
"About what?"
"Anything. Keep your brain working."
I try. Tell her about the safe house. How I found it three years ago when I was running from a deal gone wrong. How I furnished it piece by piece with things I stole from the Murphy estate because I needed somewhere that was mine.
Just mine. No brothers. No expectations. No ghosts.
The words come out fractured. Interrupted by waves of nausea. But she listens. Nods. Asks questions I can barely hear over the roaring in my ears.
When the cramps hit, they hit viciously. My stomach locks up, every muscle in my abdomen contracting so hard I curl into myself. Aoife's hand finds my back. Small circles between my shoulder blades.
"Breathe," she says. "In through your nose."
I try to laugh. It comes out as a cough. "That's my line."
"I learned from the best."
