Julie Kagawa - The Iron Traitor

The doorway they’d exited shone with a faint blueish glow. Peeking into room 301, I swallowed hard. Against the far wall, Kenzie lay in a white hospital bed surrounded by softly beeping machines. Her black hair was spread across her pillow, and her eyes were closed. A round table overflowing with flowers and get-well-soon balloons hovered next to her.

Guilt stabbed at me, raw and painful, but it was nearly smothered by the worried ache that spread through my chest when I saw her. The Kenzie I knew was never still—she was always bouncing from place to place, smiling and cheerful. To see her like this, pale, fragile and motionless, filled me with dread. Ducking into the room, I crossed the floor to her bedside, gripping the rails to stop myself from touching her. If she was asleep, I didn’t want to wake her, but as I approached the bed, she stirred. Dark brown eyes cracked open blearily, confused as they focused on my face.

“Ethan?”

I forced a smile, even as I cringed at the sound of her voice, so faint and breathy. “Hey, you,” I said, sounding a little faint myself. “Sorry I couldn’t be here sooner. I didn’t know you were in the hospital.”

Her pale brow furrowed. “Oh, crap. M’fault. Phone was dead when I got back.” Her words slurred together, either from exhaustion or whatever drugs they were giving her. “Was gonna call you when it charged, but I got sick.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I dragged a chair from the corner and sat down next to her, reaching through the railing to take her hand. “Are you okay? Is it...?”

I trailed off, but Kenzie shook her head. “This is nothing. I just picked up some nasty virus or something while tromping around ‘New York.’ My immune system isn’t that great, so...” She shrugged, but that didn’t stop the guilt that continued to gnaw at me. Kenzie smiled weakly. “I should be out of here in a day or two, at least that’s what the doctors say.”

Relief swept through me. She would be all right. Kenzie would be home soon, and then we could get back to “normal,” or whatever passed for it with me. I wanted to try for normal, give it my best shot at least, and I wanted to do it with her.

I reached out with my other hand and stroked her cheek, feeling her soft skin under my fingers. She closed her eyes, and I asked, “What did your dad say when you came back?”

Her brow furrowed, and she opened her eyes again. “He actually had the gall to be upset that I didn’t call him. He said he had the police looking for me for days, and was angry that I never told him where I was. He never took an interest in my life before. Why bother now?”

“Maybe he was worried about you,” I offered. “Maybe he realized he made a mistake.”

She sniffed, unappeased. “I vanish for a few days and now he’s interested in being a dad? After ignoring me for years and not caring about anything I did?” She wrinkled her nose, bitterness coloring her voice. “Too little too late, I’m afraid. I don’t need him looking out for me.”

I didn’t answer. It would take a lot of talking, tears and forgiveness for Kenzie and her dad to settle their differences and start to heal old wounds, and I didn’t want to be that mediator. Not with my own screwed-up family. As if reading my mind, Kenzie asked, “What did your parents say when you got back? Were they very mad?”

“No.” I shrugged. “They...sort of had a visit from the Iron Queen before I got home. She talked to them, told them where I had been, that it wasn’t my fault I disappeared.”

“Have you talked to Keirran since New York? Or your sister?”

I shook my head, my mood darkening at the thought of Keirran and Meghan. “No. I don’t think I’ll see either of them for a while.”

“I’m worried about him,” Kenzie muttered, sounding as if she was fighting sleep. “Him and Annwyl both. Hope they’re all right.”

A nurse peeked into the room, saw me and frowned, tapping her wrist. I nodded, and she ducked out.

I stood, wishing I didn’t have to leave so soon. “I have to go,” I told her as she blinked sleepily up at me. Reaching down, I gently brushed the hair from her face. “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

Her eyes closed once more and didn’t open this time. “Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Bring chocolate? The food here sucks.”

I laughed quietly, bent down and kissed her. Just a brief, light touch of her lips to mine, and she sank back into the pillows. Already asleep. I watched her for another heartbeat, then turned and left the room, vowing to come back as soon as I could.

As I stepped into the hall, a shadow pushed itself off the wall and moved toward me, blocking my path. I blinked and stumbled to a halt as a tall, dark-haired man loomed over me, cold black eyes regarding me with suspicion. He wore a business suit that probably cost more than my truck, a large Rolex on one wrist and an air of aggressive superiority. He didn’t look distraught. In this corridor of rumpled, haggard-looking people, he was tall and clean shaven with not a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his clothes.

We stared at each other, and I narrowed my eyes. I didn’t like the way this guy was looking at me, like I was a stray dog wandering around and he wasn’t sure if he should call animal control. I was about to shove past him when his lips twitched into a cold, unamused smile, and he shook his head.

“So.” The man’s voice wasn’t loud or even hostile. It was cool and pragmatic. “You’re him, aren’t you? The boy that took my very sick daughter away from her family, and her medicine, and her doctors, to go gallivanting up to New York for the week.”

Oh, crap. You had to be kidding me. This was Kenzie’s father. Kenzie’s very rich, very powerful lawyer father. The father who, by Kenzie’s own admission, had had the entire police force searching for his missing daughter all week.

I was in trouble.

I didn’t answer, and Kenzie’s dad continued to regard me without expression. His voice didn’t change; it was still perfectly reasonable, though his eyes turned steely as he said, “Explain yourself, please. Tell me why I shouldn’t press charges against you for kidnapping.”

I swallowed the challenge on the tip of my tongue. The unfairness of it all burned my throat. He wasn’t making idle threats. I’d dealt with my share of lawyers, though they were all public defenders, not the same caliber as Kenzie’s dad. If he decided to press charges against me, there was little I could do. My word held no weight; if the cops did get involved, who would they believe—the rich lawyer or the teenage thug?

I took a deep breath to cool my anger so when I spoke I wouldn’t sound like the delinquent brute he thought I was. “Kenzie wanted to see New York,” I began in the most reasonable voice I could manage. “She asked me to take her. It was a split-second decision and probably not the smartest thing we could have done, but...” I shrugged helplessly. “We should have talked to you about it first, and I’m sorry for that. But it’s done now. And you can try to keep me away, have me arrested, whatever. But I’m not abandoning Kenzie.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow, and I wanted to kick myself. Nice, Ethan. Keep antagonizing Mr. Big Shot lawyer; that’s a great way to stay out of jail. But he was still waiting calmly for me to go on, and the next words out of my mouth were the absolute truth. “I swear, I would never do anything to hurt her. I wouldn’t have taken her anywhere if I’d known she’d end up here.”

He regarded me with a practiced blank expression, giving no hint of what he was thinking. “Mackenzie speaks very highly of you,” he said. “She told me that while you were in Central Park, you fought off a gang of thugs who tried to hurt her. She has never lied to me before, so I have no reason to doubt her words. But I think, in this case, I must ask you to stay away from my daughter.”