Page 7 of Dangerous Silence
“I can watch over her,” I said. “But there’s a war, Shep. The Midnight Miles Corporation is fighting against us. It’s not safe to bring your daughter into our family right now.”
“I understand, but you’ve got to—”
A fit of coughs broke through him, making his chest seize up. A dull ache spread across my body, making me numb. How was it that I could watch a man die, holes dug into his cheeks, an ice pick stabbed into his head, but watching a man barely on the edge of suffocation, his lungs giving out before him, somehow made me feel lost?
Eventually, the coughing stopped. His eyes were red and glossy.
“You’ve got to protect her,” he said. He slid his hand onto my arm. “Watch over her. Take care of her for me.”
I looked at his hand, holding me. As close as we might have been at one point in time, we weren’t like that. Physical touch was out of place. But he needed it more than I wanted to refuse it.
I let my eyes wash over the room. On the wall, there was a gold-framed photograph of a toddler, dark brown hair like her mother, gray eyes like her father, holding a chicken, a cockatiel on her shoulder, and two dogs sitting on either side of her. And if I remembered correctly, the last time I had heard from Shep, when Demi was still a toddler, there was a cat too, just not in the picture. She was obsessed with animals, though I saw no evidence of any pets now.
That had been one of the last times Shep had spoken to me. After Demi’s mother died, everything changed. It was solely up to Shep to take care of Demi, which meant that he cut off contact with me.
Not that I cared.
“I don’t have room for animals,” I said.
“I took care of that years ago,” Shep said. A hint of a smile cracked his chapped lips. Took care of it? That meant there was a story there. One he likely had no energy to tell.
“She’s barely eighteen,” I argued. “She deserves a chance to find real love.” Whatever the hell that was. For me, it was an excuse to get out of this mess.
Shep used all of his strength to move his chin back and forth, a dramatic movement that had the nurse straightening up and glaring at me.
“No,” Shep said. “Love doesn’t matter. Keeping her alive does.”
By putting her in jeopardy so that she was living with me? When a war was going on and there were a slew of deaths ahead of us, and mine might be added to the list?
Keeping her alive.
Those words stood out to me. It wasn’t a question of marriage or love, but life or death.
“I will keep her alive,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
A bright blue city car pulled up to the front, visible through the front window. Out of the passenger seat, popped a backpack and a duffel bag, then a person. Then the car drove away.
“Does Demi know about the business?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Shep said with a hint of annoyance.
Another fit of coughs took hold of him. It was better for it to happen now before another visitor walked in.
The lock turned, and it seemed as though everyone in the room held their breath. We all turned to face the entrance. Through the screen, a person close to five feet tall was visible. She opened the screen door. The fluorescent lights flooded over her, illuminating her turquoise and violet hair.
Turquoise and violet hair. Bright. Like a damn mermaid.
“Dad?” she asked.
She ran to his side, glaring at me so that I backed away, giving them space. A sweatshirt was loose over her body,PGUwritten in athletic letters on the front. So Shep had let her go to college, then. I hadn’t expected that.
The exposed skin of her neck flushed with red. She shook her hair, letting the waves of color fall in front of her face.
“Dad?” she asked again.
I leaned against the wall, taking her in. Here was Demi, all grown up. Swallowed up by a college sweatshirt far too big for her, with dreams of a life beyond Sage City. So far beyond it, that she would rather go to a small college town three hours away than live in a major city with her father. The kind of woman who needed to be free. Who needed choice. Adventure. Experimentation. Exploration.
