Page 52 of The Beast's Heart

“Why on Earth would I be mad at him? You’re the one who got caught in the crossfire.”

She shrugs.

“I thought you said swearing was bad,” a voice says behind me. Mal is standing in his doorway, with his arms folded.

“Yes, it is. Naughty me. Why are you up?”

“Uh, ‘cause I heard the screaming?” He says, like he’s pointing out the obvious.

“Go back to bed. Everything’s fine.”

Ben’s door opens. “What’s going on?” He rubs at his eyes with his fists.

“Enrique peed the bed,” Mal provides.

“Gross!”

“As if you’ve never done it.” Mal gives him a savage grin and Ben flushes scarlet. Did Alisha deal with that incident too? No wonder she’s always exhausted.

“Alisha, see if Enrique will let you in to clean up. I’ll deal with this.” I indicate the bedclothes. “You two, if you go back to bed, I’ll bring you some cocoa.”

Ben’s eyes light up. Mal starts to protest that he’s fully awake now and not going to be able to sleep, but the offer of hot chocolate must be too good to resist, because he retreats into his room.

Alone with Alisha, I say. “In future when this happens, please wake me. I’m here to help.”

“You’re not going to say anything about him being in my bed?”

“He’s four. We should just be grateful he’s not a set of twins. My sister, Charlotte, has twin girls and she simply could not get them to sleep in their own beds. She read the books, spoke to psychologists, even did a short course. Everything. Eventually her husband had to move into the twins’ room to get enough sleep to make it through the work day. They really like to toss and turn, don’t they? And sleeping diagonally—what’s with that?”

That elicits a small laugh, but she sobers quickly. “It’s against the rules, you know? Children of the opposite sex are not allowed to share a room. Same as how adults are not allowed to sleep with kids.”

“In foster care?”

“Yeah.”

I can see why those rules would be in place. But when you’re four, all alone on a dark night in a strange place, and your only security in the world is a few doors over, I can’t imagine it’s easy to play by the rules.

“Maybe that would be my concern if I didn’t know you and hadn’t observed the nature of your relationship. But right now, my concern is you.”

“Me?”

“You can’t be sleeping well in that narrow bed with a small human kicking and elbowing his way through the night?”

She drops her gaze. “It’s fine.”

No, it isn’t. She’s sixteen. She deserves to be cared for too. At the very least to have a good night’s sleep. But I don’t say that. What I say is, “It may be fine, but it’s not good. Let’s try get himto spend more time in his own bed, okay? Our little project. A conspiracy, if you will.”

“A conspiracy?”

“Two people working together towards a common goal under the cover of night? A conspiracy.” I offer her a smile.

She doesn’t immediately agree. That’s okay.

“Go check on him and clean off. I’ll sort out the bed and the cocoa.”

I leave her, but she calls after me.

“Jonathan?”

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