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I sprinted for the bathroom. Thank God it was unoccupied, because I just barely made it to the toilet as it was, to toss the espresso I had chosen at the bar this morning, based on its high caffeine-to-liquid ratio. It tasted awful coming up, but at least there was no food along with it. There hadn’t been for a while. Having Reggie gasping for air in a hospital bed was a real appetite-killer.
Who knew, maybe I’d get Varen’s, too. Maybe there was an evil puppeteer up there in the sky, fucking with our lives. Maybe I’d have a whole lot of free time in my future to contemplate big philosophical questions like that. Lonely, pointless, quiet time to rail at God, whoever and whatever God might be. Not my friend right now, that was for damn sure.
I rinsed my mouth out. I didn’t have time for freak-outs in the bathroom. I had counted minutes to spend with Reggie. It was all about Reggie now.
I walked out and headed back toward her room, picking up my pace until I was almost running toward my sister, not looking to the right or the left.
“Cassandra.” A low, oily baritone voice as I ran by made me freeze in irrational terror, almost pitching forward onto my face. For a second, I couldn’t move. The hairs prickled up, on the back of my neck. I got control of my muscles and turned around.
Yes. I was looking at the one person on earth who could inspire knee-quaking, bowel-weakening, blood-pressure-dropping terror in me. He had found me at last, in spite of Mom’s and my best efforts. Owen Halliwell, business mogul, billionaire, sociopathic monster, asshole extraordinaire.
And also, incidentally, my biological father.
He held out his arms with a big smile, as if he expected me to run into them.
I stared at him, blank and horrified, my open mouth still bitter from having thrown up. Jangled and confused at the still-unprocessed nightmare; Reggie with two weeks to live, lying in a hospital bed she would probably never leave, plugged full of tubes, gasping for air. Hospice about to call. End-of-life choices.
And then, pow, this guy shows up. The fucking cherry on top of my shit sundae.
My mother and I had dodged this man for eighteen years. He was insane, narcissistic, terrifying, controlling, and he had literally destroyed my mom. She’d done her best, after we got away, to pull herself together and be a parent to me. She’d even bravely tried romance again with Reggie’s father, but that had petered out fast.
She had never recovered from her time with Owen Halliwell. And when Varen’s Disease came for her, on some level, I sensed that she was glad for an excuse to go, even after eighteen years of detoxing. Halliwell was like a long-acting poison.
“What do you want?” I asked.
His smile froze. “No need to be rude, Cassandra.”
I swayed on my feet. He looked just like I remembered, if not quite so gigantically tall and looming. I’d only been eight the last time I saw him in the flesh. He was stringier than I remembered, but he looked good for a guy well over sixty. Tall, fit, wiry, with snow-white hair and a neatly trimmed white beard. Mom had always said that I looked like him, but I disliked hearing it. My curly, dark-red hair and abundant freckles were from Mom, but she said that it was the wide-set green eyes, the sharp cheekbones and the pointy chin that I had gotten from Halliwell. I couldn’t see the resemblance myself, which was a good thing, because the sight of him made my stomach flop like a fish out of water, about to suffocate to death.
Not what you want to have happen every time you look in the mirror.
I saw Halliwell’s face all over the news. He was one of the three or four richest human beings on the planet, so that self-important smirk was on every magazine cover. He had his fingers in every pie; political, economic, academic, cultural, philanthropic. There was no avoiding Owen Halliwell’s mug. His malevolent pale-green eyes twinkled at me from every newsstand and supermarket check-out line.
“I was concerned for my long-lost daughter,” he said. “I was devastated to hear of Laurel’s passing two years ago. Even more distressed to hear that your little sister has now been stricken with Varen’s, too. Terrible luck. My sympathies.”
“That’s private,” I snarled. “You have no right to snoop into my sister’s medical records. Only her doctors and I should know the details of her illness!”
He rolled his eyes. “This is no time to be childish.”
“You have no idea how childish I can be,” I blurted, my voice getting louder. “You’re not welcome. You never have been, and nothing has changed. So get lost.”
He put on a hurt face. “What did your mother say about me, Cassandra? Because I can assure you, most of it was a lie. Laurel had psychological problems, and she?—”
“None of your damn business what she told me. Get out of here.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” he said, almost apologetically. “I’m sorry to distress you, but you really can’t throw me out. Essentially, I own this place. I’m on the Board of Directors of this hospital, and I donated a hundred and fifty million dollars for the new children’s wing three years ago, specifically so that cures for diseases like Varen’s can be researched and defeated. I believe in the triumph of science, the march toward the truth. But it takes time, and unfortunately, poor little Regina is out of time.”
“I’m not discussing her with you,” I said. “She is none of your damn business. Leave her alone. Forget that she even exists.”
“Do you want to spit bile, Cassandra, or do you want a successful treatment for your sister’s illness?”
My heart started to thud heavily. “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.” My voice shook. “I’m not an idiot. They said there was nothing they could do.”
Halliwell made an airy flicking gesture with his fingers. “And that is literally true. There is, in fact, nothingtheycan do. But they are not me. I have tricks up my sleeve that they don’t have. And contrary to what Laurel told you, I do take pleasure in helping my fellow man. I feel genuinely responsible for making the world a better place with my vast resources. And yes, I can get Regina the treatment that she needs.”
“How?” I demanded. “If these doctors have no clue? How can you know more about a treatment for a rare disease than they do? You’re not a doctor.”
“No, but I employ armies of them. Cutting-edge pharmaceuticals have always been a big part of Halliwell Enterprises. It’s possible. I swear it, on my honor.”
