I glare at him. "Who?"
He shakes his head. "Hopeless. Hopeless."
I don't know when we reach the hospital. It's a private one we sometimes use, and Silas knows people there.
He gets us in and arranges for someone to check on a pissed-off Lyndall.
Of course, she dozed off as we headed from the Catskills to Manhattan, but now she's awake and sitting in a wheelchair, moments away from being strapped in.
"I don't need X-rays and MRIs and scans."
Silas shakes his head. "How else are we to know if you're really Lyndall and not an alien?"
"I was twelve when I told you about my alien theory. Ababy. And I don't need?—"
Cade steps closer to me, ready to stop me from bringing the hospital down in a fit of rage.
Silas is still focused on my sister. "You hit your arm pretty bad when he tossed you in that trunk. If you want to be a star fiddle player, you need to get used to being poked and prodded and wrapped in bubble wrap."
She opens her mouth but snaps it shut. "Violinist."
"Just a few tests, nothing drastic." Then Silas leans in as the young doctor and a nurse hover near the door of the private room. "And it's all on your dad's dime."
She flops back dramatically in the wheelchair. "All the tests, A to Z, please."
And the nurse wheels her off.
Silas trails after the pretty doctor and nurse, and I lean against the bed.
Cade follows them with his eyes. "You know she doesn't need to be here, right?"
"Yeah, but I don't have to like it."
"You're in a good mood. Can't fucking imagine why Lola ran off. Can you?"
"I could destroy your marriage," I snarl.
And he just laughs. "You can try."
I look up at the ceiling and the fluorescent lights.
Even in this private room with a soft lamp near the plushest hospital bed around, they've got the ability to turn it into bright surgical lighting.
"Fuck, I would, but I like you."
"And Vi wouldn't listen to you."
That earns a snort of laughter from me. "Truth, man. Truth."
Cade steps out to the hall to call his wife, and I'm left alone with the heavy thoughts attached to the kind of emotions that rock the balance and make my stomach heavy with stone.
Because how the fuck did I let things get this far?
But I'm aware that whatever I did wrong in Lola's eyes doesn't make her taking my sister and throwing her into the arms of fucking danger okay.
In my eyes, that's a dire offense.
In my father's...
