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“Maybe,” Thea hedges, eyeing Laila’s tiny fingernails. “I can try…”
It’s clear I need to stop this before poor Thea ends up giving my daughter an hour-long manicure. So I get up from the dining table—which has become a makeshift workstation, complete with two laptops, three external hard drives, and two extra monitors—and head over to join them
I scoop Laila up and sit her on my lap. “Sweetie,” I say gently. “Remember what we talked about?”
She looks at me with confusion. “What?”
“About letting Thea rest?”
Her little eyebrows pull into a V. “But Dad. She is resting. We were just sitting on the couch.”
“It’s okay.” Thea glances at Laila’s drooping smile with concern. “I don’t mind.”
“I know you don’t. But I think a manicure with stripes and polka dots might be a bit much right now.”
Laila shifts into bargaining mode. “What if we don’t do stripes? Just plain?”
“It’s really okay, Ben.” Thea pats my leg, smiling softly at me. “It’s not going to bother me to do Laila’s nails. But”—she looks down at Laila—“just plain today. I have a little headache, and the stripes and dots might make it worse. We can try those later.”
Laila stares at her for a second, pressing her lips together as she thinks. “If your head hurts, maybe you should take a nap. That’s what Grandma does.”
Thea hesitates, her forehead creasing. I can tell she’s worried about disappointing Laila, especially since she already feels guilty about bringing her here.
Which she shouldn’t, but every time I tell Thea that, she just gets all quiet and changes the subject.
“How about if I do your nails,” Thea offers. “And then we can have some quiet time. You can read your new books, and I’ll just rest a little.”
“That’s a really good idea,” I interject. “Laila, why don’t you go in your room and pick out some books? I want to talk to Thea for a second.”
“Okay.” All smiles, Laila slides off my lap. “I’ll pick out a bunch. And maybe I can read some to you, Thea. Since you’re not supposed to be reading right now.”
Once Laila is in her room, I take a moment to inspect Thea.
She’s still smiling, though it’s faded a little. There’s a tiny line between her eyebrows—the one that only appears when she’s in pain. And the bluish smudges under her eyes are even darker than yesterday.
“Sweetheart.” I cup her cheek. “How are you feeling? Really?”
“I’m okay, Ben. Really.” At my raised eyebrows, she adds, “It’s just a headache. I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
How can I not worry?
The woman I love is suffering from a concussion. One that left her unconscious. She’s still wincing at loud noises and bright lights, and I know her head hurts more than she’s letting on.
Worse than that, she was locked in a storage closet and left in a burning building. A fire that was set with the sole intention of killing Thea.
Based on the fire investigator’s findings so far, the alarm was pulled before the fire was started, to give everyone else an opportunity to get out. The fire was only set after Thea was left in the storage closet. And given the heavy use of accelerant, if we had waited for the firefighters to go inside, chances are it would have been too late.
Which is terrifying.
And it’s not just the physical danger I’m worried about. It’s how Thea is holding up emotionally.
Since the meeting with Cole and Leo, she’s been putting on a good front.
Chatting with all the Blade and Arrow women when they came to visit, laughing with them and thanking them for their gifts and never, ever letting on that she’s in pain.
Stifling her cries when she wakes up from a nightmare, brushing it off as nothing.
Forcing a smile when it’s so clear to me she’s suffering.
