I repeated it.
Silence on the other end of the phone. I couldn't even hear him breathe.
"Jean-Claude, you still there?"
"I am here, ma petite." He sighed. "You have surprised me once again. I did not see this coming."
"You don't sound happy," I said. "You know the news could be worse. We could all be dead."
"I did not think Colin would be so foolish."
"Live and learn," I said.
"Colin was right to fear you, ma petite."
"I told Colin what would happen if he messed with us. He pushed the button, not me."
"Who are you trying to convince, ma petite, me or yourself?"
I thought about that for a moment. "I don't know."
"Are you admitting you were wrong?" His voice held mild amusement.
"No." I tried to think how to say it. Finally, I said, "We were losing, Jean-Claude. They were going to kill us. I had to do something. I wasn't even sure it would work." I held the phone, and wished that he were here to hold me. I hated the thought that I wanted him like that. That I wanted anyone like that. I hated needing people. They all had a tendency to die on me. But I'd have given a great deal for a pair of comforting arms right at that moment.
"Ma petite, ma petite, what is wrong?"
I motioned Asher over to the phone. "Talk to your second banana. Ask Asher if there were other options. If there were other options, I couldn't see them."
"There is something in your voice, ma petite. Something fragile." He whispered the last word.
I just nodded, and handed the phone to Asher. I walked away from it hugging myself tight. Fragile, he said. Scared, more like. I'd scared myself tonight. Something in the power I released had extinguished the torches around the lupanar. Those of us still standing had moved by the light of burning corpses. It had been a scene right out of Dante's Inferno, and I had done it. The power inside of me had done this thing. Yeah, scared about covered it.
Damian came up to me. He whispered, "Jason's crying in the shower."
I sighed. Great, just what I needed, another crisis. But I didn't ask questions. I just knocked on the door of the bathroom. "Jason, you all right?"
He didn't answer me. "Jason?"
"I'm all right, Anita." His voice, even over the shower sounded strained. I'd never really heard him cry before, but that's what it sounded like, a voice thick with tears.
I pressed the top of my head to the door and sighed. I did not need this tonight. But Jason was my friend, and who else was I going to send in to comfort him? Damian had come to me with it. Zane didn't seem the hand-holding type, and Cherry, well ... if I was going to send another woman into comfort him, it seemed cowardly. Asher? Naw.
I knocked on the door again. "Jason, can I come in for a minute?"
Silence. If he'd been feeling anywhere near okay, he'd have made some kind of joke about me finally seeing him in the shower. That he didn't tease me at all was a bad sign.
"Jason, can I come in ... please?"
"Come in," he said finally.
I opened the door and the warm air fogged around me. I closed the door behind me. The room was soft and thick with warmth. It was hot, the moisture beading on every surface as if he'd cranked the shower up to as hot as it would go. Hot as it would go was enough to scald the flesh from your bones, if you were human.
The light left his shadow on the white shower curtain. He wasn't standing. He was sitting on the floor of the shower, huddled.
I moved the towel from the lid of the stool and sat down with it in my lap. "What's wrong?"
He took a deep sobbing breath, and even over the shower I could hear him weeping. Crying didn't cover it, weeping.