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Underneath the block of text there’s an image of a woman, pale, long blonde hair fanned around her head like spun silk, eyes closed, clearly in a coma. I recognize the woman straightaway. During the one incredibly hectic and stressful day I spent back at work, the nurses had filled me in on the Jane Doe in room 136. She'd been brought into the hospital by an anonymous member of the public, unceremoniously abandoned, and left to die. She'd already been in a coma then; I'm almost surprised she’s lasted as long as this.
“What is it, Lace? Do you know this woman?”
Lacey nods, head bobbing up and down. “She's the one who stabbed Zeth. She's Charlie's woman.”
“And you think Zeth would want to see her?” That seems very backwards to me. Very backwards indeed. Lacey doesn’t bother to answer me, though.
“If she's dying, then we have to see her. We have to. We have to go now. She might die before we get there.”
I have no idea where this is coming from, but the frantic glint in Lacey's eye, coupled with the anxious tone of her voice, tells me the next words out of my mouth are going to cause some serious problems. “I'm sorry, sweetie. None of us are going anywhere until Zeth gets back.”
I can practically see the thundercloud form over the tiny woman's nimbus of golden curls. She angles her head down, her chin almost touching her breastbone, and looks up at me with the most sinister look in her eyes. For a moment I don't even recognize her. “I'm going, Sloane. You can't stop me.”
“The front door's locked, Lace. We are on the eighth floor. There are no fire escapes for you to bolt down. I don't need to stop you; I just won't give you the key.”
“You will,” she tells me. “You will or I'll take it from you.”
Alarm bells, no, a freaking klaxon begins to sound inside my head. I’ve never seen her like this before. I’ve seen her sad and upset, downcast and withdrawn, but I have never seen her angry and determined. I get the feeling an angry and determined Lacey might actually be a force to be reckoned with, even though she’s almost less than half my size.
“Why do you need to see her, Lacey? Explain it to me and maybe we can work something out.”
“I just do, okay?” She snatches her cell phone away from me, holding her hands to her temples. “It’s none of your damn business, Sloane. You think just ’cause my brother is fucking you that you’re gonna be around long enough to witness the next big fucking disaster that sweeps through our lives, but you’re not. You’re gonna be sick of us by the end of next fucking week. You’re gonna go back to live with your churchy parents. You’re gonna go back to wearing twin sets and playing golf with your doctor buddies, and your little slumming session with Zeth and his fucked-up sister is gonna be over. It’s gonna be me and him left to deal with all this shit. Me and him!” Those last words come out of her mouth as a choked sob. There’s so much rage and doubt in her. The quiet, reserved Lacey I know, who climbed into my bed this morning, has vanished altogether.
“Don’t you think it’s time you admit that?” she asks. Her eyes are filled to brimming over with tears. “Don’t you think it would be better to just walk away now before you’re dragged into this any further and you feel like you have to stay because you have no other option? Because things have gotten so bad and so irreparable that you can’t leave?”
With each word it feels like she’s slapping me around the face. When I first met her I was unsure of her, unsure of her connection to Zeth and therefore cautious, but recently I’ve cared for her. Looked out for her. Hell, she confessed she’d murdered someone to me only a few hours ago in my bed and I did nothing but hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. So yes, it hurts incredibly that she’s speaking to me like this. It’s breaking my heart.
“Where’s this coming from, Lace?”
“It’s coming from a land called reality, where we have been living while you’ve been up on your little hill above the city, looking down on the rest of us.”
“Lacey, I’m not—I’ve—”
“She’s never worn a twinset,” comes a voice from my right. Pippa, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest. Finally she’s come out of the bathroom, probably just to watch this tiny woman kick my ass. That’s where things look like they’re headed right now. Lacey screws up her face, scowling at Pippa.
“You’re just as bad,” she snaps. “You were mean about my mother, and you had no right. No right to say anything about her whatsoever.”
Pippa retains that cool, calm, and collected exterior that she wears whenever she’s working with someone in her office. “You’re right. That was out of line. I’m sorry, Lacey. But you’re attacking the wrong person here right now. Sloane’s not a judgmental person, and she’s not one to commit herself to something and then bail. And that’s what she’s done here—she’s committed herself to you and Zeth. That’s why I’ve been so worried. Because I know there’s no way she’ll ever walk out on you now. She won’t even be dragged kicking and screaming. I should think yesterday’s events with the police were proof enough of that.”
Lacey doesn’t back down. Not for a second. She’s bordering on hysteria; I can see it staring back at me out of her troubled eyes. “You’re not my family. You’re not my family. We need to be together again. Only family can protect family. Blood is thicker than water, Sloane. You have to let me go. You have to let me.”
