Page 394 of Wicked Brutal

I lift my head. Tobias is still holding her carefully, still letting her tiny hand hold his finger.

I reach for him. “I love you.”

His little face softens. “Ya tebya lyublyu.” Then he looks down at Piper. “You too.”

And he keeps holding her, beside the little pelenashka made from our mother’s things, while Piper Jane sleeps in her uncle’s arms.

Ryan

By the time Tobias finally gives me my daughter back, he’s been holding her for forty-three minutes. I know because I’ve checked the clock twice. Not because I want Piper back. Mostly.

He sits in the chair beside Ally’s bed with pillows stacked around him, one arm under Piper exactly where I showed him, staring down at her like the rest of us have stopped existing. Piper’s asleep. Tobias isn’t. He has spent most of the last forty-three minutes telling her everything he thinks she needs to know about being alive — frogs, fishing, which ice cream is best, why Cat can’t be trusted to catch frogs because she screams when they jump toward her, three Russian words, four French words, and the fact that her grandmother’s name was Jane. That part wrecked all of us.

He’s quieter now, one finger brushing the edge of Piper’s blanket. “She has to eat soon?”

“Probably.”

“What does she eat?”

I glance at Ally, who laughs softly from the bed. “Milk.”

“Oh.” Tobias looks at Piper again. “Can I feed her?”

“Not yet, buddy.”

“Why?”

“Because this is something Ally has to do.”

He accepts that immediately. “Okay. But I can do bottles later?”

“If Ally wants to pump or we use bottles, yeah.”

“I can do one?”

Ally answers before I can. “You can do lots of them.”

His entire face lights up. “Even at night?”

I laugh. “Especially at night.”

Ally gives me a look. “You’re not outsourcing night feeds to the six-year-old.”

“He volunteered.”

“I’ll do it,” Tobias says.

“See?”

“Ryan.”

I smile — not because I’m trying to annoy her, but because she’s sitting in a hospital bed with our daughter in her brother’s arms, exhausted and sore and safe enough to argue with me about imaginary future bottle schedules. Because Piper is here. Ally is here. Tobias is here. I keep looking at all three of them like I need to make sure.

Tobias glances down at Piper. “Can she sleep in my room?”

“No,” Ally and I say together.

His forehead wrinkles. “Why?”