Page 72 of His Atonement

I push myself harder, use all my speed to get to her quicker as I run like hell through the woods.

Why would she keep something like that from everyone? From Allie?

I'd put money on her grandmother being in the dark too. Would almost be willing to bet Frankie has been living with whatever this is totally alone, without one single person to give her support.

For that I should punish her.

Frankie deserves to have someone care for her the way she cared for her grandmother, the way she cares for Allie and her babes.

Gods, that must be why she has never told her cousin that something is in fact wrong with her, probably kept it a secret so Allie could live the life she has.

I come to a screeching halt about twenty feet from Frankie's cabin as another thought occurs to me.

The bucket list.

She has a goddamn bucket list, one I originally thought was a promise made to her grandmother, but now, now I question that.

Especially as I recall one item in particular that she scratched off that list.

My darling girl does not believe she will fall in love, but not because she feels unworthy or does not desire it. Frankie scratched that off the list because she doesn't think she has enough time.

Oh gods in The After, please let me be wrong.

Seconds later I'm practically kicking open her front door. "Frankie! Frankie! Show yourself right fucking now!"

She comes flying out of the bedroom, her silk kimono barely closed around her naked body, a baseball bat—the one she used when we destroyed the windows in the rage room—in her left hand and a glass bowl shaped like an ice cream cone in the other, little wisps of smoke curling out the side.

"What the fuck, Zan?" Frankie glares. "You scared the hell out of me.Again."

"You're not leaving?" I ask, far more angrily than I should.

She leans the bat against the wall, and hits her bowl. "Sorry to disappoint you, but no, I'm not leaving. I have nowhere else to go even if I wanted to."

I sigh in relief but it's short lived when I see her eyes shift unnaturally. Which is exactly why I blurt, "Are you ill?"

Those woodland eyes narrow once they relax, narrow to slits. "Excuse me?"

"Are. You. Ill? Is there something wrong with you?"

"Fuck off, Zan. I'm not going to give you any more reason to make me miserable by entertaining whatever bullshit you've concocted in your mind."

She turns to go back to her bedroom, but I see the spasm in her calf, see the way it moves up the muscles in her entire leg, the way she almost stops because of it.

And I'm done playing games with her, done making her miserable because I love her too much for that, and apparently my darling girl manages well enough on her own.

"It is not bullshit,” I basically growl because I'm still kind of an asshole. "I heard Grace—"

"Jesus!" Frankie throws up her empty hand, and spins toward me. "So she's just running around telling everybody I'm sick now, is that it?"

"Are you?"

"I'm not fucking sick, ok? God. I'm fine except for the fact that I wish everyone would get their goddamn nose out of my business.” She turns again and disappears into her room but I'm not done. Far from it, actually.

So I follow her, throw my hand up to prevent her from slamming the door in my face and push into her bedroom. "Grace said she sensed it, sensed an illness in you, one she could not place."

"Because there is no illness!" Frankie sets her bowl on the nightstand I didn't notice last night then wraps her kimono tighter. "There is no illness, I'm not sick, and you can stop pretending to care so goddamn much, ok? Just leave it, and me, alone, Zan."

"I will not.” I step closer, the electricity between us turning to an inferno. "I will not leaveitoryoualone because I genuinely care very goddamn much."