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Her shoes clicked towards him. She held the cup out. He drained it in a couple deep swallows. It helped. He grabbed her hand. “Don’t go.”
“Um.” She stared down to where her wrist was swallowed by his hand. She was looking at his scars. He wasn’t sure at what point in their adventure he’d gotten them. That whole last day was a blur of pain and fire, with a few highlights pointing out, like spikes.
Like the part where he’d let King convince him that Lily was one of the guy’s operatives. She wasn’t pulling away, though.
“So you’ve got the kids,” she said. “You’ve adopted them?”
“I’m in the process. They’ve been with me for a few weeks now.”
“Are they, um…OK?” she asked, delicately.
He shrugged. “They seem to be OK. They’re great kids. Holy terrors, particularly Tonio. Zia Rosa tells me he’s exactly like me.”
“How did you find out their names?”
“We didn’t. We named them, Zia and I. For Tony, and Mamma. Antonio and Magdalena. They didn’t have names. Evidently King didn’t assign names until the third year, when the programming began.”
She shivered. “How awful.”
“It’s better,” he said. “It was appropriate, to name them for Tony and Mamma. Tonio’s a big boss. He runs the show, or thinks he does. And Lena’s a diva, pulling all of Tonio’s strings. They’re awesome.”
“And you?” She tugged his hand gently. “How is it for you?”
He smiled, and shook his head. “It’s good,” he said. “Difficult. Crazy. I don’t sleep much, but I never really did. I love those kids. And I’m glad, to be doing something hard, and important. I’m lucky I have something to give a shit about.” He paused. “Under the circumstances.”
A tremor went through her. “So,” she said, with forced brightness. “What do they call you, then? Bruno? Uncle Bruno? Zio Bruno?”
“No,” he said. “They call me Daddy.”
She blinked. “They don’t need a brother or an uncle,” he went on. “They need a father. I never had one, but they’re damn well going to.”
“Ah.” There was an awkward silence. “Well. It’s amazing. And so lucky that you got them before King started, um, messing with them.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered if he had messed with them. King messed with me, and my mamma still thought I was worth saving.”
“Of course you were,” she soothed. “I wasn’t questioning that.”
Her eyes were big, wary. He was making her nervous. Cool it.
“What happened to those other kids we found?” she asked, timidly. “The teenagers that were in the white room? Are they OK?”
He shook his head. “They’re struggling,” he said. “The fewer years of programming they’ve gone through, the better off they are. There were thirty younger ones, and they’re hanging in there. But don’t you know all this? I figured Liv or Edie would keep you up to date.”
Since you refused to take my calls or respond to my emails.
“I’ve been incommunicado,” she said. “Trying to figure out what to do with myself. Everything is different, now that Howard’s gone. I don’t have to write term papers for pay anymore, thank God. After what happened, I couldn’t stomach any more of that. Whatever I do from now on, it has to be real. Even if I make only a quarter of the money.”
“I hear you,” Bruno said, with feeling. “So you’re going to write papers for yourself, then?”
“I was considering it. I think I’d like academia. Maybe teaching English, or writing, at the high school or college level. We’ll see.”
“You’d be good. Your students will love you and fear you.”
“We’ll see,” she hedged. “Who knows.”
“I know,” he said. “Believe me. I know.”
She flapped her hand at him. “And the adult operatives? Did they ever find the ones that were running around loose?”
