Page 107 of Gunslinger Girl

“I…”

“Pity.” There was no anger in his eyes, only a curious kind of concern. He put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “You can tell me.”

Pity took a deep breath. “Not me.”

“Then who?”

She hesitated, but only for a moment. What did it matter at this point? The act was over. “Max.”

His hand tightened. “Max?”

“Ow.” Pity shifted away, but he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Has Selene done something with him?”

She blinked at him, not comprehending.

He shook her hard, once, like a dog with a rat in its teeth. “Is that why you’re here?”

She ripped her arm away and retreated. “Why? What does he matter to you?”

Sheridan spun and pitched his glass at the wall. It shattered, sending crystalline shards twinkling through the air and leaving whiskey dripping down the wallpaper.

Frozen with bewilderment, she could only stare as Hook rushed into the room.

“Sir?”

“I’m fine!” Sheridan barked. He kept his back to them, his tense frame slowly relaxing. “An accident. Please leave us alone.”

“Sir, I don’t think—”

“Go.”

Sheridan turned to her as the bodyguard obeyed, his cool demeanor returned—save in his eyes, which shone with an intensity Pity had never seen before. What is happening? She moved behind the sofa, keeping it between them. First Selene had turned on her, now Sheridan was losing his mind over… Max? It didn’t make any sense. Sheridan barely knew who he was and only knew him through her. Max was no one to Sheridan, a painter in the—

The room lurched. She grabbed the couch to steady herself, overcome by a sensation like ice water flooding her veins.

No one.

But Max wasn’t no one, was he? His parents were powerful enough to worry about kidnappers, to send a retrieval force after him, and to get away with murder.

No. Please, no.

Tears formed in her eyes, the adrenaline in her blood an elixir of utter helplessness. She didn’t want to ask the question, but already drowning in half-truths and lies, she wanted—needed—the answer.

“Who is Max?” She swallowed, her mouth dry. “And what does he have to do with you and Drakos-Pryce?”

Seconds stretched like hours as Sheridan considered her. “He never told you about his life before Cessation?”

“No, not… all of it.”

Sheridan laughed with honest, but hollow, amusement. He collapsed into his chair and stared at her, uncharacteristic indecisiveness etched on his face. Pity waited, every fiber of her being aching to escape, and knew there was no way out of the quicksand dragging her down by inches.

“Pity,” he said finally, “this is very important. Put the games aside and answer me truthfully: can I trust you?”

The meaning carried clearly: he was already trusting her. And if he needed to do that, it meant his situation, whatever it was, had turned desperate. But could she trust him? She eyed the door Hook had disappeared through, aware that he was probably listening, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

If she tried to leave now, would Sheridan let her?