Page 51 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine

I don’t know how to answer Brice. It was beautiful, yes, but fuck, it hurts.

It felt as if he was probing every dark part of me that I refuse to acknowledge on even my best days. It felt as if he saw much more than he had let on until now.

It also echoes the fact my sisters didn’t even ask if I was okay after surviving two bullets in my legs.

It echoes the fact I didn’t give a second thought to it and that if it wasn’t for the deep fatigue I felt after whatever the doctor had given me, I would already be on my way to finding Dad.

It echoes the fact that I’m still working my ass off to give them a better life, but it’s like nothing I do will ever be enough.

I keep telling myself that it’s normal. They lost their mother super young. It was hard on them, and that’s why they need my love, my affection, my caring, especially since Dad isn’t always there to provide that for them. But in the end, who is going to love me the way I love them?

No, I can’t start thinking like that.

No, no, no.

This isn’t the right time.

I have other things to do, other more important things to do than dwell on what could be.

I can wonder all I want, but it’s not going to change the fact I need to find Dad.

I just hope he didn’t do something stupid enough to land him in the bird-shifters’ cells.

It would be a first for him, but I can’t really put it past him. If he tried to borrow money from the wrong people, it could very well land him in dark places, especially since Dad has never really been a good player.

But why would he? He always has me to fix things afterwards. No matter how bad the situation gets money-wise, I always make sure there’s food on the table and the bills are paid—be it the girls’ school or electricity. I even set his debts right a couple of times already.

So it could be anything, and I fear what some of the worst men could do to him if he didn’t pay them back.

I should hurry. Sometimes a few minutes is all it takes for a situation to go from bad to worse, but weirdly, I don’t want to move.

Brice’s hand is still at my back drawing circles through the hospital gown they have dressed me in, even if my breathing has been back to normal for a while now, and I know I should keep my distance and let his hand fall away, but I think I need the little comfort this is bringing me.

I know it’s only temporary and in just a few minutes he’ll go back to trying to piss me off like he always does, but I can’t help but notice that he’s showing a lot of empathy for someone who is supposed to not feel any emotion whatsoever.

What if he told me the truth when he said that he could feel things when he tries to make me mad?

I assumed he meant that he could feel amusement at my predicament, but what if it was more than that? That speech he just delivered doesn’t sound like the bored man I’ve been spending time with for the past few weeks.

But was he really just that bored man? I can cast him in a dark light knowing how he tricked me into working for him, but ever since I stayed in Blois?

He’s fed me—which is really important if I’m honest with myself—and made sure I had snacks that I liked anytime I needed them.

He paid attention to my level of tiredness, forcing me to sleep or take some time off from coding when my brain wouldn’t work right anymore.

He got me to go out when I didn’t even know I needed it, and he stayed close to me when I wasn’t feeling well.

He messed up when he sent me back to Paris, but I didn’t really fight him either. It seemed sound at that time and I’m as much to blame as he is.

And he’s here now.

When everyone is living their life, not even bothering to find out if they could be useful in Dad’s search.

He’s here, and he wants to help.

Maybe he has a motive behind the help he’s granting me—he needs me, the quicker the better, to get his brain back to normal—but that doesn’t change the fact that he isn’t trying to deter me from my task.

God knows some would lock me in so I don’t hurt myself more and would find another way to find Dad. They would make sure I was stuck inside while others went to search for him.

That’s not what he’s proposing, though.

It’s like he knows that I need this, that I need to be the one looking for Dad, that if I’m left here to wait until I get news, I’ll lose my nerve, go crazy or something similar.

I’m not a very patient person. No, that’s false. I’m not a very patient person when I have nothing to do.

I can be plenty patient when I’m super focused on something … like coding an entire program to rewrite a brain.

“Where are we going first?”

His question stirs me out of my once again spinning mind, and I’m brought back to reality.

A reality where I’m still in a hospital gown and have nothing to wear to go hunting for my dad.

“I need clothes first. And then we’re going to the underworld.”

Brice raises an eyebrow at my ominous sentence.

“We’re going to the catacombs. There’s a chance Christina might know something,” I say sheepishly. It sounded way better in my head without having to explain.