Page 50 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine

W hen I wake up the second time, nothing seems to be itchy in my body. I’m a little sore, but that is to be expected after being shot twice. There is no twinge of pain when I roll on my side and lie on the exact spot a bullet was lodged in a few hours ago.

I rub at my eyes as I ask Milton what time it is. I don’t have the strength to open my eyes yet, but knowing most of the afternoon flew by while I was sleeping the pain of being shot away is like a cold shower.

This is time I should have been spending looking for Dad.

When I finally open my eyes, I’m greeted by a cup of hot chocolate and what looks like one of those fancy pain au chocolat that are streaked with chocolate on top, the kind I never get to buy because, well, they’re fancy, which means expensive.

And with a father who literally spends his money like it grows on trees, we always have to be careful with how we spend our money, or more accurately, I have to be careful.

I don’t have to be careful now, though, and I grab the pastry at the same time my stomach growls.

Maybe one pastry won’t be enough .

The loud growl of my stomach reminds me that the last thing I ate was a piece of chocolate cake more than a day ago and even that I didn’t keep after throwing it up earlier.

When I killed a man.

I killed a man—technically not really a man, but a shifter.

I took a life.

My stomach turns into a knot, and I’m not even sure I can eat that wonderful pastry with those thoughts churning in my mind.

I didn’t think about it when I first woke up, my mind too focused on getting the girls somewhere safe. And then when I discovered that was already the case, I was so relieved to see them safe and sound that everything else fell to the background.

Everything else but the feeling of my exhaustion.

But now that I'm back to being—somewhat—normal, it all crashes down on me.

I killed someone.

I killed someone’s son.

Maybe I killed someone’s father, someone’s brother.

I killed someone’s friend.

I killed someone.

And I don’t know how to live with the idea.

“And at last she wakes up,” Brice says from where he’s looking at me at the door.

His shoulder is propped against the door frame, his arms crossed under his chest and one leg crossed over the other.

He’s looking at me like he’s trying to find the best way to rile me up, that signature smirk—that I hate to love—in place, and his green eyes following all of my movements.

“If you’re here to piss me off, it’s not the right time,” I tell him with a sigh.

I want to be angry at him, but all the fight left me when the weight of my actions finally settle on my shoulders.

I’m a murderer.

“What if I want you to fight me?” he asks nonchalantly.

“Then you can go to hell,” I bite back. “What good would it be to you, anyway? You can’t even feel amusement …”

“What if making you mad is the only moment I actually feel something?” he asks with the same bored tone.

“You can’t joke about that, Brice. It’s not funny.”

He walks from the door and squats just in front of me as I sit on the bed.

“I don’t say that to be funny,” he tells me, his eyes never leaving mine, and I almost want to believe him. “Would it be so hard to think that you make me feel something?”

I snort.

Why he had to word it this way, I have no idea.

“Don’t believe me if you want,” he says. “It’s up to you. What isn’t up to you, though, is the fact you haven’t eaten in days.”

“Aren’t you exaggerating again?” I say with another snort. This one is even more unladylike than the first.

“Tell me the last time you kept a meal down,” he demands with a knowing smirk.

When I don’t answer, he keeps talking.

“I can ask for something healthier if you prefer, but I thought you would be more agreeable to eating something sweeter. Those never seemed to last very long in Blois, and it’s always fun to pick them and see which ones will disappear the fastest.”

“Did you pick all my pastries?” I ask in disbelief.

I don’t know what’s worse, that I kept eating what was delivered every day—I’m pretty sure my clothes didn’t see this as a good thing—or that I didn’t think he was the one picking them. And that I liked something he prepared for me.

“I didn't pick them individually. I gave orders on what to retrieve,” he says in that same bored tone he used a minute ago. “Are you not going to eat this one? Is it not good? I can get something else if it’s not to your liking.”

“I’m not hungry,” I say in a small voice that I don’t recognize.

“I’m not going to ask you to eat for me.

I’m pretty sure you would throw that pain au chocolat in my face if I do, but do it for your father.

If we’re going to go out now, you need your strength.

You can’t go running after your father with no energy.

We don’t know what we’re going to find,” he tells me.

“We?” I ask with a sneer. “There’s no we.”

If he wanted to find a way to piss me off, he’s on his way alright.

“I won’t let you go alone,” he tells me as he stands and forces me to look up at him.

“Like you didn’t let me go alone in the first place?

” I ask. “We’ve all seen how well it worked.

If you hadn’t appointed me a bodyguard, no one would have tried to shoot me.

I’m no one. I’m a nobody, or at least I was until you decided I needed guarding.

And now what? Now I’m in a world that isn’t mine.

I’m way over my head in shit that isn’t mine, and it’s not like I can fight back like you all.

I’m just human. I’m nothing special, and they’re going to come after me, after my family.

Hell, they might already have my Dad. And all of it is because I agreed to work for you.

How are we going to leave now? Hidden for the rest of our lives for one single bad decision I made? Scared of going out? Scared to live?”

I don’t realize my breathing is out of sync until Brice comes to my side on the bed and rubs my back.

“Breathe,” he tells me. “Everything is going to be alright.”

I look at him with my best “am I to believe you just because you say so” look, but I still listen to him as he brings my hand over his heart so my breathing follows the rises and falls of his chest.

“We’ll protect your sisters, and once we have your dad, we’ll protect him, too.

They might have to live in Notre Dame for a while, but we’ll make sure they’re well taken care of, and I’ll send a team to retrieve whatever belongings they need so they don’t feel completely lost here.

That being said, you're not their savior.”

He throws me a look that dares me to cut him off and argue, but I’m still out of breath so I let it go.

“You’re not their savior. You’re not their mother either.

You’re their sister and they seem to forget that too easily.

If you want to consider that working for me was a mistake, so be it.

I messed up. I didn’t realize it would be more dangerous for you to go back to Paris with one of us than it would be if you had gone on your own.

And I’ll die knowing I messed up. If you had died today, I would have never forgiven myself. “

“If I had died today, you’d be stuck staying away from your best friend,” I whisper under my breath.

My breathing is back to normal, but I don’t want to talk more than that or I might start hyperventilating again.

“That’s not what’s important. Yes, I care about the job you’re doing for me.

I wouldn’t spend so much money on it if I didn’t care, but that is not what this is about.

I might be an ass who likes to toy with you often, but what you can do for me isn’t more important than who you are as a person.

It isn’t more important than you and your safety. ”

He pauses like he wants to make sure I understand that he means what he’s telling me.

“And never tell me again that you are nothing special or a nobody. I don’t know a lot of people that could reprogram someone’s brain, build weapons in their free time, or even make their own AI from scratch all while taking care of their family.

I only know one person who can actually do all of that, and it’s you.

Your family might not see it, and you might think I’m telling you this because I want you to finish the job I’m paying you for, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is true.

You’re a fucking genius, and more than that, you’re kind, you’re caring, and you’re compassionate to the point you forget that you have a right to live your life the way you want.

You forget you’re allowed to have expectations that are completely different from your dad or your sisters.

You’re allowed to want things for yourself.

You’re allowed to want. Period. And if I have to piss you off for you to hear me say that, I’ll make you mad every day until you finally believe it. ”