Page 75 of Assassin's Game
“Join me?” I asked.
“Coming, Nix?” Levi yelled.
“Coming!” She looked to me, a smile I might almost call shy gracing her full lips. “I’ll join you.” She turned to go, but glanced back at me before stepping onto the elevator. I was still staring when the doors closed.
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Chapter Thirty-Two
Abby —
“Time to get up, baby girl.”
I opened my eyes to Geneva’s sweet face looking down at me. I hadn’t been sleeping, but the world seemed too heavy to handle with my eyes open. So, so heavy. Even now… “What?”
“Time for dinner,” she said, not unkindly. God, I wished she’d stop, except I didn’t know if I could bear it if she did. Still, her kindness threatened to undo me. “You need a shower, and then we’re going down to eat with the family.”
Panic fluttered in my throat. “No, I can’t. I…”
The pull of her tender hands got me to sit up, not because she was strong enough to lift me herself, but because I’d never want to disappoint her. I even found myself swinging my legs over the side of the bed because I knew she expected it. Then I looked down at the covers, threw them back but couldn’t let go of them. Couldn’t stop staring.
This bed… It had been a refuge for months, a sanctuary for just Levi and me. A place of pleasure. A place of hope.
And now I hated it. Yet I couldn’t make myself leave.
Geneva sat next to me. Her wrinkled brown face drew me, anchored me. She’d been late into middle age by the time she took my mother under her wing. Taught her how to care for the baby she hadn’t planned but had loved all the same. There were so many years between that humble beginning and finding Geneva two years ago, learning about the mother I’d never been allowed to know. The mother I lost when I was too young to remember.
And now…another loss. I’d been the mother here, though. And I wasn’t sure I could live through this one.
“You need to be up for a little while, child,” Geneva was saying. “Not long, not enough to tire you out. But being stuck in here staring at the four walls isn’t gonna help you at all.”
I knew she was right. That didn’t motivate me to stand and head for the shower like it had gotten me to sit up.
“Is…” I finally let go of the covers to cross my arms over my belly, holding myself together. “Is Levi downstairs?”
“Of course he is.” Geneva patted my thigh. “Just waiting for you.”
I cringed. There was noof courseabout it. And the likelihood that he was waiting with bated breath for me to walk into the kitchen was nil. I didn’t know what had happened this morning, but I knew he’d left. When I finally woke around lunchtime, Geneva had been in a comfy chair next to my bed, and Bryant had come in once or twice, telling me Levi had gone to help Eli and Remi with something. I deliberately closed my mind to what thatsomethingcould be—and to the pain that blossomed when I realized he wasn’t here. My brain understood he wouldn’t leave without a damn good reason, but my heart… Well, it was shattered into a million pieces, so understanding anything was too much to ask right now.
“I can’t go down there yet, Geneva. I can’t.” Levi had told me when he finally came home that Nix’s team was here. His brothers too. Too many bodies. Too many eyes staring at me with pity, knowing… Just, too much everything.
“Half an hour,” she promised, her light tone edged in steel. “Just long enough to eat. You have to eat anyway, right?”
Not really. If I didn’t eat, would the pain go away? Would I be numb? Sounded perfect to me.
Geneva stood, reached for me. I stared at her hand.
“Just a few minutes, baby girl,” she said, a well of infinite patience in her words.
She meant well, I knew. And she was probably right about what I needed. But facing them all… I bet Nix was perfect, just like Maris was. Strong. She’d never fail her family like I had.
Yes, that was it. A sense of rightness settled in my chest. “I failed, Geneva.” Failed Levi. Failed myself. My child. I was the weak link in a chain of strong individuals, and I couldn’t stand to have that strength staring me in the face.
A distressed sound left her throat as Geneva returned to her seat next to me. “You did not fail, Abigail.” Her frail arm felt far stronger than I could ever be when it circled my shoulders. “A miscarriage is not a failure. It’s not your fault; it’s not anyone’s fault.”
A sob welled up in my throat, choking me. “I failed. I failed him, Geneva. How can he stand to look at me when I’m so weak that I couldn’t keep our child safe?”
She pulled me against her, patted my cheek until I laid my head on her shoulder. Waited long, long minutes until the sobs worked their way out of my system. And then she asked, “Is that what you believe about your mama, girl? That she was weak and that’s why she died? That she failed you?”
