Page 91 of Lady and the Butcher
“I won’t bring danger to your family,” he said. “I’ll bring an end to the part of it that thought it could step on their street.”
“That’s the same thing,” I said, but I could hear the lie in my voice. The part of me that had watched him in the warehouse agreed with him.
“Simone,” he said, and my name in his mouth was a hand on the back of my neck. “You did the right thing by telling me. You don’t run alone. Not anymore.”
I closed my eyes and let that land. I opened them and stared into the dim room and saw every shape twice. The lamp. The chair. The outline of my suitcase against the wall. The life I had tried to hold separate and the life that had already bled into it.
“I’m scared,” I said, because maybe the only way through was to say it out loud. “I don’t want this touching my people.”
“It won’t,” he said. The certainty in his tone was comforting, but only to a point. “Text me your father’s wireless password. Share your location with me. Keep a light on at the front window. I’ll call when I hit the bridge.”
The Bridge of Lions. The thought of him crossing that span, the light swinging out across the water, the marble cats watching him pass. It steadied me and shook me.
“Atticus?” I asked again. I didn’t know what the question was. I knew the answer I wanted.
“I’ve got you,” he said, like he had put his palm over my heartbeat. “And I’ve got them. Sleep if you can. If you can’t, lie down, anyway. I’m on my way.”
The line clicked off. The room went back to being a room. I set the phone on the pillow and lay on my side and stared at the window. The oak scratched the screen. A car hissed by on wet asphalt. My fear did not vanish. It learned to share space with something steadier.
30
Afew hours later, Atticus was through the door on the first knock, not because I opened it—I hadn’t reached the handle yet—but because my father did. “Evening,” Dad said, like he and Atticus were neighbors with a pie between them.
“Sir,” Atticus answered, almost gentle. The door shut behind him.
I made tea because doing with my hands helps calm me. He stood by the sink and didn’t touch me except with his eyes, which was somehow worse and better.
“How’d you get here so fast?” Dad asked finally, like it would be rude not to.
“Stephen called me earlier,” Atticus said.
Dad looked confused. “He called you?”
Atticus’s mouth curved without any part of him softening. “We lived in the same dorm our freshman year. He was loud, I was quiet. I fixed his computer. He bought me cheap beer. He dragged me to hear terrible bands. I taught him not to get jumped behind the gym. He taught me that loyalty is a languageyou speak with your feet.” His eyes lifted to mine. “He’s my friend.”
“I know,” I said. We’d already been over all of that, but it seemed like he was saying it now for Dad’s benefit. Not mine.
I was glad he did.
That night, we didn’t sleep much. Not really. We lay down on top of the covers with our shoes by the door like the night might ask for us. Atticus put my phone on the charger and my hand on his chest. His heart wasn’t loud, just steady. I matched it.
Thankfully, the night was uneventful. No one lurked outside the house. No one tried to break in. It was peaceful, kind of like the calm before a storm.
The next morning, Atticus woke before the sun. He checked the angles I didn’t know to check and drank the coffee Dad made too strong. I showered and stared at myself in the mirror until the steam gave me a softer outline than the past days had. I was tying my hair up when the landline phone in Dad’s kitchen rang.
Dad answered, hesitantly. No one used the landline anymore. He said our last name the way you say it when death might be standing too close. Said “Yes, his older sister is here, too.” Said “We’re coming.”
When he handed me the phone, it was a stranger’s voice—a female doctor whose name went in one ear and out the other. Words stacked like blocks I couldn’t hold. Labs. Crash. Counts. Blast cells. Leukemia. Each one hit and slid. My ears rang. The room tipped a little and then came back.
I had felt something tugging at me a while. That soft wrongness you try to explain away with sleep and vitamins and wishful thinking. Stephen had looked thinner. He’d looked bad. Not just tired, but like something was seriously wrong. I had told myself he was busy. I had told myself not to hover. Now the feeling stood up and pointed at me.You knew.
“What do we do?” I asked, because it was all I could think to say.
“Come to the hospital—MUSC,” the doctor said. “He’s stable. We’ll start treatment today. We’ll talk transplant when we can.”
I exhaled. I didn’t break. Breaking would be for later, in private. “We’re on our way.”
Atticus had his hand at the small of my back before I set the receiver down. He’d heard enough. “Keys,” he said. Dad held them up.
