Page 41 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine

I sleep like the dead.

I have a fuzzy memory of Brice tucking me to him in my bed, but I’m not sure if I dreamed that or if it was reality.

If it was reality—and I’m doubtful it was—in any case, I’m the only one in the bed now.

It doesn’t help that when I wake up, there is a glass of water waiting for me on my nightstand and that it’s accompanied by a plate of chocolate cake.

Did I not eat that?

I’m rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hands when a cramp makes itself known.

It’s very subdued in comparison to yesterday—was it yesterday?

I tap on my holo to activate it. Wednesday, September seventeen, eleven twenty-six.

My dreadful period started on Monday.

I’ve lost a full day.

Shit.

I don’t know what that pill was that Brice gave me but I have a feeling it could knock out a horse.

At least I’m not hurting anymore, but that also means I’ve lost a day to help my sisters. If Dad disappeared two days—no, three days—ago, I can’t really help from here.

I need to go back to Paris.

The problem is that, like Amélie said, we need the money, and if I don’t complete what I’ve been hired— cough , kidnapped—for I don’t see that money coming. Yes, I’ve worked for days, hell, for weeks, on this project, but I didn’t deliver yet. And I’ve mostly tackled only one of Brice’s problems.

I still have no clue how to bring back this ass’s feelings, sentiments, or whatever.

The interweb might have an idea, but from what I read, it’s even more risky than what we’re trying to do in the first place.

But I guess as long as he’s alive and not trying to kill his best friend again, he can live without his feelings. He’ll just stay a big asshole. I know people who can feel and they’re bigger assholes. It might be his default setting too, for all I know.

Aren’t you being a little mean? He took care of you before you slept for a full day …

True. I might have dreamed the part where he slipped in bed with me, but I still very clearly remember him bringing me medicine and making me drink some water.

After that, that’s when it starts to be fuzzy.

The door opens and here he is.

“You’re awake at last,” he says.

“If someone hadn’t drugged me, maybe I would have been awake earlier,” I bite back.

“You’d probably still be in pain and feverish,” he answers matter-of-factly.

“Touché,” I mumble to myself and then I add a bit louder, “I need to go back to Paris. It’s an emergency.”

I expect him to tell me it’s not possible since we’re only days from doing the surgery that will liberate him, but instead, he surprises me .

“When do you need to leave?” he asks.

“You’re not going to try to make me stay to do the surgery?” I ask in disbelief.

“Should I?” he says, and my brain short-circuits.

Did I think he would ask or tell me to stay? Yes. Did I want him to tell me to stay? I’m not even sure I can answer “no” to that question.

And that’s what is stalling my mind.

Brice seems to realize what’s happening because he doesn’t wait for an answer to his first question.

“What makes you think that you need to go back to Paris?” he asks instead.

“Dad disappeared again,” I answer half heartedly.

“It’s not me this time,” he says cautiously.

I want to laugh at the first answer he thinks I needed, but somehow it’s not reassuring at all. I was kind of hoping that he had something to do with the disappearance.

If it had been him, it would have helped with hating him some more, but at the same time … I would know where Dad is and that would be a relief.

And then he asks the million euro question.

“Why do you need to be there to find your dad?”

And I snap.

“Because my sisters are all alone. Because they don’t know where to look for my dad. Because they are lost without a parent figure. Because they won’t survive if no one takes care of them. Because they need me,” I say, almost out of breath.

I think I’m having a panic attack.

“Breathe,” Brice says, and that’s when I know I probably muttered that last sentence loud enough for him to hear.

He sits on the bed next to me and brings my hand to his chest, just above his heart.

I can’t feel his heart through his thick muscles, but I can see my hands moving as he breathes.

“In,” he says, matching his own respiration. “And out.”

He repeats a few times and my own breathing starts to mimic his.

“That is a whole lot of what they need,” he says once I’m completely back to normal. “What is it that you need?”

He doesn’t let me answer before he adds, “You do realize that two of your sisters are of legal age and that they should be able to deal with the matter on their own, right?”

Except they can’t. Why else would they have called if they could handle everything?

“They don’t know how to,” I tell him and I don’t know why I feel so emotional, but I have a feeling if he pushes me on the subject, I might cry.

Damn hormones.

“Okay,” he tells me, as if he understands the turmoil that’s inside of me when I know damn well that emotions are the last thing he can actually understand. “Is there anything we can do from here? Or do we need to go to Paris right away?”

I sputter, “ We ?”

“I’m going alone,” I tell him. It’s not that I don’t want my annoying jailer to go with me to Paris … oh yeah, actually it is. If he’s going to let me go, it might be good for my sanity.

I might be able to find someone to fuck so I stop dreaming about him being the one I fuck, and so I can do my job without being distracted.

Because, yes, my return to Paris will only be temporary. I need to come back here to finish the job because I need the money, and definitely not because I want to help Brice.

Brice tries to speak, but I stop him.

“You can’t go there. And it’s not because there is no ‘we’ in the first place, but because you can’t take that risk.

What happens if you go with me and by some stroke of bad luck we cross paths with Elhyor?

What happens if because of me you kill your best friend?

Not happening. You’d throw weeks of my work in the trash for something that could be avoided? ”

Brice is silent after my little monologue and I feel like it has more to do with the fact that he’s plotting the best way for him to insert himself into this little trip of mine.

“You’re right,” he says, and I sit here like an idiot because that’s the second time in just a few minutes that he surprises me with his answer.