Page 12 of Caution to the Wind

’Cause I’d dropped the ball protectin’ their daughter.

I was too saturated with my own guilt to deal with any more bein’ doled out by the Marchands when they barely made time for their own daughter as it was.

“Glory,” I murmured, gently shakin’ her shoulder. “My girl, wake up.”

She stirred, clingin’ to me like I was a life raft. She was a heavy sleeper, and it took her a couple moments to wake. “Dad?” A shudderin’ breath as she fully woke but didn’t open her eyes. “It was a nightmare, right?”

My throat closed up so tight I thought I’d never breathe again. “No, sweetheart. Mum’s still gone.”

A whimper that shot me straight through the heart. My head thunked against the wall behind the plastic chair back as I squeezed my eyes shut and fought for control.

War had taught me a pivotal survival technique.

One minute at a time.

Thinkin’ any further than that was a death sentence to productivity, and I couldn’t afford to lose that. I had a daughter to take care of and a girl who counted on me in a hospital bed down the hall.

“Glory, Rocky’s awake,” I told her, pausin’ when she tensed with shock, then sagged in relief against me. “You wanna go see her?”

“Can we?” she pleaded, eyes glazed with tears as she pulled away enough to look into my face. “She’s okay?”

“She’s gonna take a while to recover, but we’ll be there for her,” I promised.

And even after everythin’ that had happened in the last twenty-nine hours, Kate’s greatest gift to me looked up into my eyes like I was her hero.

“Okay, Dad, let’s go.”

She stood up on coltishly long legs she hadn’t grown into yet and immediately tagged my arm to throw over her shoulder when I stood too. I clasped my hand around the ball of her shoulder and tugged her close. It was awkward ’cause of our significant height difference, but we walked like that down the linoleum hall to Mei’s room.

Cleo stopped before the closed door, peerin’ up at me from beneath her bangs. Even red-eyed and swollen from sobbin’ too long and too hard, her sweet, trustin’ face reminded me I still had so much to live for, even without Kate. “I’m scared.”

“She’s gonna be okay,” I promised, but I wondered if she knew I would’ve promised her anythin’ then and meant it.

“I…” Tears sprang into those rainwater eyes and sluiced down her cheeks. Her voice was a ravaged whisper as if her throat was too tight to talk when she spoke. “I don’t think I can survive losing them both.”

“She’s gonna be fine––” I started to say, but then I remembered that my daughter was smart, and she’d seen more in her short life than most adults. She knew there was a possibility that Mei would recover from her physical injuries but not her spiritual ones. That she might rise from this day of death like a zombie, alive but not whole. And my sweet, tender-hearted Cleo couldn’t stand to lose her mother and her best friend at the same time.

With sudden, acute misery I realized that I’d never have Kate to turn to for parentin’ conversations again. She’d always steered the ship ’cause I was just the stepfather, but now, I was all Cleo had. The gravity of that responsibility pressed against my shoulders ’til I thought they’d buckle.

But the look in those wide eyes reminded me that Cleo believed in me.

All I had to do was give her a reason to continue doin’ that.

I dropped my arm from her shoulder so I could take her face in my hands and bent my knees so we were closer to eye level with each other. I wanted her to read the sincerity in every inch of me.

“It’s just you and me now, Glory.” The words ached in my throat and tasted bitter on my tongue. Cleo choked on a sob and reached up to latch onto my wrists. “But nothin’ is ever gonna tear us apart. You hear me? We don’t share blood, but I don’t give a damn. Someone tries to take us from each other, I’ll kill them. Does that scare you?”

“No,” she said instantly, remindin’ me that this was a girl raised by a prostitute who’d seen darker things than most twelve-year-old kids ever had. “I know you will.”

“Those people that did what they did to your mum? I’ll find out who they are and make them pay for it,” I vowed ’cause I wasn’t the dad Cleo should’ve been born to, a suburban guy with a minivan and a degree in accountancy. I was a trained killer tryin’ to atone for his sins by savin’ lives now as a doctor, and this was exactly the kinda dad I had to be.

“Okay,” she breathed, her shoulders straightenin’ slightly. “I believe you.”

“And Mei? She’s a part of our family, now. She was before, in a way, but tragedy bonds people. You know Uncle Bat and Uncle Cedar? They’re my brothers ’cause of what we went through durin’ the war, and now, Mei and you are like sisters ’cause of what you’ve been through today. Nothin’ will take that from you two. Nothin’ forged in fire like iron can be so easily broken.”

“You think?” she whispered, eyes dartin’ to the closed door of Mei’s room.

“I know so.”