“Wait,” I said, and he stopped.
“What?”
“I want to tell you.” It had gotten difficult to focus, but I felt like I wanted to tell him everything, just then. To tell him about my years on the street, what I’d done to survive, all of it. I wanted to tell him all of the things I’d been too afraid to tell him over the years. I felt like if I could tell him that, and he still accepted me, I could…
“Tomorrow,” he said.
I shook my head. Tomorrow I’d be too scared to do it, again.
“Tonight.”
“I won’t listen,” he insisted.
“Why not?”
“You’re drugged out of your mind. You’ll regret it tomorrow if I let you, so I’m not going to.”
“You suck,” I breathed.
“Yeah, I know,” he said.
“I do….”
“You do what?”
“I want to be… with you.”
He smiled, but just a little. I couldn’t read his look.
“It’s been a long time, Sam,” he said.
I think I managed some kind of noise that may or may not have been an actual word before whatever drug they gave me pulled me back down. I felt Vamp stroke my hair again, and then he began to fade away, with the light.
Chapter Five
The next time I opened my eyes, morning had come and light streamed in through a row of windows at the room’s far end. Some of the beds had been wheeled out during the night, while others were still occupied. A TV mounted in one corner showed news footage of the riot with the sound turned down, and several nurses had gathered around it to watch.
I crooked my head, and winced at the deep throb of pain between my eyes. The 3i front end popped up and I grabbed Alexei’s contact icon.
Alexei?
Sam, are you okay?
Yeah, I’m okay.
Yun said you got hurt.
Just a bump. Everything okay over there?
Yeah.
“You’re awake.”
I turned and saw the nurse from the night before, Qian, as she approached my bed. She smiled as she removed a small penlight from her uniform pocket.
Alexei, I’ve got to go. I’ll be home soon.
Okay.
See you.
“Sit up, please,” Qian said.
I did, wincing at the pain in my ribs. Qian shined the light in one of my eyes, then the other before switching it off.
“You’ll be in some pain for a few days, but you’ll be fine,” she said, pocketing the penlight. “You appear to be quite the popular young woman.”
“Huh?”
“You have another visitor. Your father is here.”
“Oh.”
She must have seen my face fall, because her smile dropped a notch and she lowered her voice.
“Would you like me to tell him you’re still sleeping?”
“No,” I said. “No, it’s okay. You can send him in.”
She nodded, and left. A moment later, I heard heavy footsteps approach. Dragan stepped through the doorway on the other side of the room, kitted out in full uniform, and scanned the beds. I saw him make note of some of the more badly injured patients, his eyes lingering for a moment on the man whose hand had been blown off.
“Hey, old man,” I called.
He turned, and I saw his face fall. He started toward me, picking up his pace as he approached. I braced myself for him to be angry, and to start in scolding me, but he didn’t. He stopped at the side of my bed and looked down at me, his hands held out in front of him like he wanted to touch me but wasn’t sure if he should.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I…”
I found my phone on the bed stand and turned on the camera, pointing it at my face so that the screen framed it. A huge knot had formed in the middle of my forehead, with a purple-green bruise spreading out around it. The bruise grew darker as it went down the sides of my nose, and then turned to two big, black shiners under my eyes.
“Great,” I muttered. I switched the camera off and tossed it back on the stand.
“Sam, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “It’s just a bump on the head.”
“You could have been killed, you know,” he said.
I couldn’t exactly argue about that, sitting in a room full of people with cracked heads and gunshot wounds, so I just nodded.
“Sorry.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Who told you?”
“Dao-Ming.”
“Damn it….”
“Don’t be mad at her. She was worried about you.”
He sat down on the bed next to me, and I leaned against him. He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.
“I heard about Jin,” he said. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t think about Jin.
“I’m sorry I worried you,” I said instead.
“It’s okay.”
“And I wish those people hadn’t jumped.”
He nodded. “I saw the footage. It was pretty bad.”
“The sound they made….” I shuddered, wishing I could bleach it from my mind.
“You going to be okay?”
“I will be, yeah.” I shook my head. “Why did they do it?”
“Sometimes people believe things so strongly, they’re willing to go to extreme lengths.”
“I guess.” I reached across my chest, and put my hand on his. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I went?”
“No, I know why.” He curled his lips, not quite a smile. “Nice video, by the way.”
“Oh,” I said, sheepish. “You saw that, huh?”
“Oh, I think it’s safe to say all of Hangfei’s seen it by now.”
“How’d you know it was me?”
“I raised you, Sam. You think I don’t recognize the outline of my own kid?”
“So you’re really not mad?”
“Sam, it’s like this,” he said. “I don’t like it when you’re in harm’s way. I’m never going to like that, and that’s just the way it is. Maybe I don’t say it enough, but my life really changed when I met you. Having you around made me realize the kind of man I wanted to be. So when you’re in trouble, or hurt, I don’t like it.”
I’d been expecting a fight, and found myself at a complete loss. Dragan almost never said things like that. It came as such a surprise I had no idea what to say.
“I… me too,” I managed.
“But,” he said, “you’re not the little girl I found out in the rim anymore. You’re a grown woman, now, and you’ve shown how strong you can be. I know that better than anyone. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. And don’t forget, I’m the one who tracked the burn to the haan. I saw what went on down in Shiliuyuán. I don’t trust them, either, Sam. Not anymore.”
“Maybe it’s pointless. I just… feel like I have to do something, you know? I feel like maybe time’s running out.”
He looked at me, real serious. He made sure no one else was close by, then lowered his voice a little.
“Sam, I’ve asked this before,” he said. “What did you see down there? When you found me in Shiliuyuán Station… what did you see?”
“Sillith…” I started, but the words didn’t come.
“You’ve never been the same,” he said. “Not since that day. What did you see?”
“You won’t believe me. No one will.”
“I know you saw something that shook you hard,” he said. “I believe that much already.”
There were all kinds of things that kept me from talking about it. Prior to that moment I hadn’t planned to tell him. I wished I could forget it myself. I never planned to tell him, but the next thing I knew, the words were coming.
“Sillith didn’t just want the burn,” I said, my voice almost a whisper. “She meant to double-cross Hwong.”