Page 105 of Sloth
He took a deep breath and sighed, stretching his long legs in front of him, and put his hands on the log for support. The silence expanded until Sloan couldn’t stand it anymore.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Weird.”
“Like, weird-weird, or funny-weird, or like, you’re seven kinds of weird?”
“I don’t even know what that means. It’s been too long since I’ve needed to speak Sloan.”
“Well, lucky you’ve got plenty of time to figure it out.”
With a small frown, he picked up her left hand and fingered the ring he’d given her. “Yeah. I do.”
“You okay?”
“Just can’t believe we’re here. You still have the ring. We made it back to each other. It’s real.”
She shifted toward him on the log and he lifted his arm around her shoulders, tucking her in to his regrettably T-shirt covered torso. He smelled divine. Sweaty, salty, and manly.
“She said some strange things,” Max said, eyes looking off in the distance.
Sloan tensed. She knew he meant Daisy. She squeezed his hand and waited for him to say more.
“She said I’m stained. A murderer. A sinner. She said that I’m unwanted.”
“Max.”
“I almost believed her, and then… she started asking about our relationship, and they way she’d asked, it made me think she’d never been in one. This whole time, she’s not known the meaning of love.” His grip tightened around her shoulder.
With a sigh of her own, she melted on the exhale and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry she hurt you.”
“I’m not.”
What? She pulled away so she could look him in the eye. “Why?”
“Because now I know something that can help you.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It wasn’t until I mentioned you’d set a place for her at the table until she really went to town on me. It bothered her so much. It made herfeelsomething. And when your father ca—”
“Saywhat?” Sloan’s voice peeped. “Father?”
“The man who was there with her, he’s your biological father. I thought you knew that.”
Sloan shook her head, throat turning to dirt. “I didn’t. But it makes sense. Gloria was manipulated for years into creating us. Love will do that to you. Except, the love was only one sided I guess. That man is a monster.”
“No arguments from me there.”
“Do you think Daisy is having second thoughts?”
“You tell me. It was her prompt that gave the antidote to the serum, right?”
Sloan nodded.
“And she argued with her father when he ordered her to inject me.” He shrugged. “It might be nothing, but I have a feeling it means something. She’s having doubts.”
Sloan bit her lip. “We found out their base of operations is in the city. It’s a tower facing the South-Side. We were going to infiltrate it to rescue you when we saw the news. We’ve set up surveillance and sat on the information for weeks and have seen her go in and out multiple times.”
