Page 37 of Paradise

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.” His father kissed his forehead. “You have to sleep for a while now, son.”

“No, I can’t!” Garrett tried to sit up, suddenly remembering what he had to do, but the restraints were already in place. “No! I have to tell Jonah something, something important …” But what was it? “There was something, please,” he pleaded with his father. “I have to tell him. He’s going to leave me, and he won’t even know what I did to deserve it.”

“He won’t leave you. He loves you. You can tell him when you wake up, baby boy.”

“No …” Garrett felt drowsy, and he hated it. He knew it was the medication the autodoc had administered. “No, Dad. Please …”

“It’s okay, Gare.” Through the stars flying across his vision, Garrett could make out Miles’s face, still comforting, still watching him. Watching him … Miles was here, he would make it okay. He had never lied to Garrett before—he took care of him when it was bad. “Go to sleep. You’ll have a chance to make things better when you’re healthy again.”

“’m not … not right.”

“But you will be, son,” Miles promised him. Garrett let the heavy solemnity of that promise draw him down into the well of unconsciousness. There, at least, there was no more pain.

Chapter nineteen

Cody

The room after Miles and Garrett left it was uncomfortably quiet. Cody sat still at the very end of the couch, pressing his lips together tight. He didn’t want to look at anyone. Daddy was upset and confused, the way he almost never was, and even though no one was speaking, everyone was angry. Cody could tell. Their hands were twitching, mouths twisting like the words behind them were fighting to get out. Wyl had a hand on Robbie’s arm and his chin pressed to his shoulder, trying to keep him still. Jack’s lawyer was huffing tiny breaths through her nose like one of the dragons in the holobooks Garrett had been reading with Cody. He sort of expected puffs of smoke to come out.

Something was wrong with Garrett. Cody had known as soon as he saw him when he came into the room, but he hadn’t said anything. And as soon as Jack touched his arm … Cody shivered, and his daddy pulled him closer. Garrett had hurt Jack, and now Garrett was sick. Maybe he was dying. Cody knew that everytime he got sick, his daddy was always worried that he was dying. Normal people were stronger, they didn’t have to worry about that sort of thing, but maybe Garrett wasn’t normal either. Maybe he was broken like Cody.

Not broken, his mind reminded him. Daddy and his teachers and all the therapists had told him that over and over after they left Grandma’s ship. The first few years of his life, those that he remembered, Cody had known he was broken because so many people had said so.Theneveryone had said he wasn’t, but he didn’t really know how to believe them. If he wasn’t broken, why had they had to move away? Why had Jack left them alone for so long? Why was Garrett sick now if Cody hadn’t made him that way?

“I’m sorry.”

Everyone looked over at Jack in surprise. He was cradling his broken arm close to his side, wincing, but he was looking straight at Cody. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”

“Damn straight, you shouldn’t,” Jonah said, but he didn’t sound angry, just tired and sad.

“Don’t apologize,” his lawyer said crisply. “You did nothing wrong. It was that unbalanced man’s fault.”

Cody frowned at her. “He’s going to be my daddy.”

“I sincerely doubt that at this point,” the lawyer said. She sounded like Grandma when she had talked to Daddy, like she was the biggest and bestest thing in the whole universe, and everyone else was just stupid. “He’s clearly unhinged. A man who can’t be trusted to self-medicate in order to keep those around him safe belongs in a closed facility, not taking care of little boys.”

“He’s going to be mydaddy!” Cody yelled at her, knocking that superior look right off her face. He turned to his dad. “Promisehe’s going to be my other daddy,” Cody demanded. “You can’t put him in a ’cility. You said he’d be our family.”

“Of course, he will be,” Daddy said, and the speed with which he said it made Cody slump with relief. Daddy pulled him closer into a hug. “He’ll get better, and everything will be fine.” He glanced over at Robbie, like he was asking a question, but Robbie just shrugged, a little helplessly, like he didn’t know the answer.

“I don’t like you,” Cody said to the lawyer. She looked unaffected, but Jack looked upset. Good. Cody stared straight at Jack. “And if you let her take me away, I won’t like you either.”

Jack looked curious. “You like me?”

Cody shrugged. “I don’t really know you.”

Jack looked at Jonah, who sighed. “Not like I’ve been poisonin’ his mind against you,” Daddy told Jack. “You didn’t come up a lot. He had his memories, and they were fine, and that was it. Reckon there’ll be a lot more to remember now.”

“Stop talking to them,” Jack’s lawyer advised. “You’re in a position of strength. Don’t compromise it for the sake of expediency.”

“We’ll see about that,” Robbie said from the door, his voice cold. A moment later, Miles came back in, followed by a doctor holding a med bag.

“Where’s Garrett?” Daddy asked immediately. The doctor came around the table to treat Jack, but Cody ignored both of them. Miles looked very serious. That wasn’t good.

“He’s in the infirmary. He’s in a medication-induced coma.”

Oh, that sounded bad. Comas were bad, weren’t they?

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