The Hidden - Jessica Verday [7]
Then she shut down.
“I can’t deal with this. I need a pill.”
She suddenly left the room, and I waited for some type of explanation from Dad.
But he didn’t give me one.
“What was that all about?” I prodded him. “‘I need a pill’?”
“Your mother is just upset by everything that happened. The doctor prescribed her some pills to calm her nerves.”
“Calm her nerves? You’d think she was the one who’d been attacked.”
Dad sucked in a sharp breath of air.
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—”
He shook his head. “I know what you meant. But it’s going to be tough for a while. We all need to … adjust. Your mother and I love you very much, Abbey.”
“I know, Dad. I guess I just need some time to adjust too.” Time to adjust to the fact that they didn’t know what had happened, and I could never tell them.
My broccoli was cold now, but I didn’t feel like heating it up. Pushing my plate away, I maneuvered my sling out from under the table and stood up. I turned toward the stairs, but stopped short. “Hey, Dad? What would you and Mom do if I died? Or if I had already been dead when you guys came home and found me?”
All of the emotion bled from his face. “What kind of a question is that?”
“Just a question.”
“It may be ‘just a question,’ but it’s certainly not something you need to worry about.” He patted my arm. “You have a very long life ahead of you.”
When I made it back to my bedroom, Caspian was lying on the bed, looking up at the stars. “You know they’re much better in the dark,” I said.
“I know. But I was waiting for you.” He propped himself up on one arm, and I sat down beside him. “How did things go down there? I heard yelling.”
I sighed. “Yeah. It was Mom. She’s freaking out because they have a security system guy coming to put an alarm in.”
“And she doesn’t want that?”
“Oh, she wants it. Or doesn’t. Or doesn’t want to want it … I don’t know. It’s confusing. She’s confusing. It’s not like it’s going to stop Vincent if he comes here again anyway, but they don’t know that. I think she’s just mad about the fact that she feels like she has to get one.”
I shrugged. Or tried to. The sling on my arm pulled tight and hurt. “I can’t wait to get this stupid thing off,” I said, lifting it up.
“Aw, poor baby. I can’t even rub it or anything.”
I gave a mock sigh, but my arm was really hurting now. “Can you grab me that pill bottle on the desk?” I asked him. “The tall one with a yellow lid.”
He obliged and dropped it next to me on the covers. I popped the top open and reached for the glass of water sitting on my nightstand. After washing down two pills, I recapped the bottle and rolled it back across the covers to him.
Caspian scooped it up and put it back on the desk. Then he walked over to the closet. A moment later, a blanket was placed next to me. I looked at it in surprise.
“I figured you’d want that,” he said.
He’d figured right. I was already pulling it on top of me and snuggling underneath. He sat down beside me without a word.
“Can I ask you something?” I said. “About … Vincent?”
“What do you want to know?”
“After I went to the hospital, what happened?”
He looked like he was thinking about it. Then he said, “The last thing I remember was seeing him in your room. All I could think about was getting him out of here. Then it’s just a blank. When I woke up, I was with Nikolas and Katy. At their house.” He put his head down, right next to my ear. “I said that I needed to find you. Sophie and Kame were there, and they told me what had happened. Then they brought me to the hospital.”
“Did they tell you why Vincent came after me?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“He came after me because he got the wrong girl,” I said sadly. “He thought Kristen was me. I’m the reason why she’s dead, Caspian.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “It’s not your fault. You’re not the reason she’s dead. He is. Don’t put that on yourself.”
“But if I had just known … had done something to warn her …”
“Warn her how? You couldn’t have changed anything, and if you had—” He stopped.
“You know we’re going to have to talk