probably didn’t matter. My stolen phone buzzed, but I ignored it.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Simon, dabbing antiseptic as lightly as possible. It had to sting. “I’ve never said that before, have I? I’ve treated you pretty awfully, and I know you were only trying to help. I’m sorry.”
He gulped in a breath like he wanted to choke on it. “No, you’re not.”
“Hey. I am too. Can we get a new start? On the right foot this time.”
Why did my knee ache? I scratched at my face and was surprised when my nails came away bloody.
My phone buzzed again. Irritated, I silenced it.
“Cas.” Simon took another ragged breath, and his shoulders convulsed like he was holding in a sob. “Oh, God, Cas, I—you’re going to kill me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m trying to stop. I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m telling you I’m sorry now.” I re-sanitized the mystery blood off my hands with alcohol wipes and dug through the first aid kit for the right kind of bandages. “Now, can you tell me what happened? Memory loss can be normal with concussions, so just tell me what you do remember.”
This time his sob sounded halfway like a laugh.
He really did seem to be having trouble with his memory, but at least part of that was some muddled mindfuck regarding the Australian, whom I had barely remembered until Simon brought him up again. He also kept repeating that he’d never thought anyone could hurt him.
“I don’t think anyone did hurt you,” I said. “Not intentionally. The blast damage is centered with its target as the front door, but some of the shrapnel became projectiles. Whizz bam. You were standing in the wrong place.”
“I thought it was wrong…” he started, but seemed to lose the thread.
Someone else had been in the wrong place too. A man without a face slammed a boy into the ground, and it flashed through me like something out of a nightmare.
I shuddered. Bad dreams best forgotten.
“No, don’t,” Simon said. “Cas, this isn’t, it isn’t right. You have to get away from me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “And this wasn’t your fault. The Australian must’ve learned a few tricks from D.J. Do you remember anything else?”
He seemed to struggle for a moment.
“I remember—police. For a long time. But I didn’t want them to talk to me—or notice me—it would be so complicated. And I knew you would be coming, Cassandra, I knew…” His eyes went out of focus again.
“I’ll always come,” I said. “I promise.” What the hell had taken me so long this time, anyway?
No matter. Whatever it was, it wasn’t as important as being here.
I finished dressing his scalp wound and got up to dig out some canned soup to heat for us. A dull headache had started behind my own eyes. I tried as hard as I could to pinch it out, or, failing that, ignore it, but it spread until it melded with a bruise on the back of my head I didn’t remember getting.
I didn’t have bowls, but I brought the pot back to Simon, regretful I didn’t have anything better.
“Cas.” Simon had mustered a bit of energy, but he closed his eyes again, and blocked my hand when I attempted to spoon-feed him. “Cas, I’m not going to let—please go.”
I barked a laugh. “I said no. No way. You’re injured. You absolutely need someone with you.”
“Then get Rio.”
“Why?” My headache shaded itself a little worse, but I was still perfectly capable of taking care of him. And he needed someone to do that right now.
He needed someone, and I wanted to be that someone. Forever.
He pushed himself up to sitting and faced away, his back a wall shutting me out. Something shivered in my head, a bleak rejection, a rattling unease.
“Because I don’t want you here,” Simon answered me thickly. “Now. Get Rio. Please.”
I still didn’t want to leave him. But he kept insisting, over and over, pushing and pleading. My emotions spiked in strange cycles, half insulted, half confusion. I proposed taking him with me back to Diego’s house, but he shut that down too, saying he didn’t want to be around anyone right now, but especially me.
That stung.
“Send Rio,” he repeated, and I reluctantly agreed.
It took walking away in the outside air and a good five minutes of Rio unraveling my strange, concerned behavior over the phone before my headache spiked along with an absolute fury at Simon, concussion be damned.
Fucking telepaths.
I sat down hard on the bumper