Page 87 of Even Robots Die
I don’t doubt that her sisters love her, but they also have high expectations of her.
Expectations that oddly remind me of the ones kids have of their parents, except in her case, there is none of the respect for a parental figure.
The lines are blurred, and even if her father forced her—whether consciously or not—to assume a motherly role, she is still just their sister.
Is she really happy with this position, or did she have no other choice than to step in at an age she should have been a kid herself? At an age she was just starting to build herself?
No wonder the light in her eyes makes her look much older than she is.
I still want to know, but asking now would only make it that much more obvious that I was listening in on a private conversation, and I saw her face before Cassiopé shooed all the girls outside. She looked pained by what her sister said. By how much, I don't know yet, but I plan to discover it.
She’s been asleep for over an hour now and I’ve been sitting in a corner of the room, still wishing we were in mine, when it looks like she might wake up very soon.
I type a message on my phone so that a snack is prepared for her and when a knock comes at the door, I quickly grab the cup and the pastry and set them on the nightstand next to her.
I don’t think she’ll want me here when she wakes up, so I slip outside and wait for her to get up and see what she’s planning for the rest of the day.
We still have time to go search for her father before the day is over, and this time I won’t trust her safety with anyone else.
Whether she likes it or not, I’m going with her.
49
Florentine
When I wake up the second time, nothing seems to be itchy in my body. I’m a little sore, but that is to be expected after being shot twice. There is no twinge of pain when I roll on my side and lie on the exact spot a bullet was lodged in a few hours ago.
I rub at my eyes as I ask Milton what time it is. I don’t have the strength to open my eyes yet, but knowing most of the afternoon flew by while I was sleeping the pain of being shot away is like a cold shower.
This is time I should have been spending looking for Dad.
When I finally open my eyes, I’m greeted by a cup of hot chocolate and what looks like one of those fancypain au chocolatthat are streaked with chocolate on top, the kind I never get to buy because, well, they’re fancy, which means expensive. And with a father who literally spends his money like it grows on trees, we always have to be careful with how we spend our money, or more accurately,Ihave to be careful.
I don’t have to be careful now, though, and I grab the pastry at the same time my stomach growls.
Maybe one pastry won’t be enough.
The loud growl of my stomach reminds me that the last thing I ate was a piece of chocolate cake more than a day ago and even that I didn’t keep after throwing it up earlier.
When I killed a man.
I killed a man—technically not really a man, but a shifter.
I took a life.
My stomach turns into a knot, and I’m not even sure I can eat that wonderful pastry with those thoughts churning in my mind.
I didn’t think about it when I first woke up, my mind too focused on getting the girls somewhere safe. And then when I discovered that was already the case, I was so relieved to see them safe and sound that everything else fell to the background.
Everything else but the feeling of my exhaustion.
But now that I'm back to being—somewhat—normal, it all crashes down on me.
I killed someone.
I killed someone’s son.
Maybe I killed someone’s father, someone’s brother.
