Warcross (Warcross #1)(85)

He studies me for a moment. “You and your teammates will be moved somewhere safe. I’ll see you after the tournaments are over.” Then he stands up and leaves my bedside.





27



That night, I sleep poorly. The hospital bed doesn’t fold quite right, and no matter what I do, I can’t get comfortable on it. When I finally do drift off, old memories seep into my dreams, scenes from when I was eight years old, when my life was back in New York City.

I came home from school one day with my yearbook clutched in my arms. “Dad, it’s here!” I shouted as I shut the door behind me. The school had let my third-grade class decorate the book’s front cover that year, and I’d spent the entire past week painstakingly drawing in the elaborate swirls on the cover’s corners.

It took me a second to realize that our home was in complete disarray—strips of watercolor paper everywhere, cut-up clothes in small piles on the floor, paintbrushes and buckets strewn across the dining room table. In one corner of the room was a haphazard dress Dad was working on, pinned to a bust in a dozen places. I threw down my backpack at the front door and looked on as Dad bustled past me, holding a few pins between his lips.

“Dad?” I said. When he didn’t answer, I raised my voice. “Dad!”

“You’re late.” He flashed me a quick scowl as he settled back into his rhythm of work. “Help me get the snow peas out of the freezer to defrost.”

“Sorry—I was finishing up my homework in the library. But look!” I held up the yearbook with a grin. “They’re here.”

I’d thought for sure that his eyes would jump immediately to the swirls on the cover, that he’d break into his familiar smile and hurry over to have a closer look. Oh, Emi, he’d say. Look at your line work!

Instead, he ignored me as he started pinning up another section of the dress. He was humming to himself, some melody I knew but couldn’t quite place, and his hands trembled slightly as he worked. Was I in trouble? I ran through a list of possible things I could’ve done wrong, but came up empty.

“What are you making for dinner?” I asked, trying to coax him into a conversation as I placed the yearbook down on the kitchen counter. He didn’t respond. I gathered up his paintbrushes scattered on the dining table and dropped them back into the brush jar with a clatter then wiped the table clean with a damp cloth. His laptop was open on the table, and I caught a glimpse of a site with numbers in bold red, along with images of dice and cards and a symbol I didn’t yet know was a gang’s sign.

It read, -$3,290.

“Dad?” I asked. “What’s this?”

“It’s nothing,” he replied without turning around.

I didn’t understand yet that it was a gambling site belonging to a criminal ring, but I did know what a minus sign in front of red numbers meant. I sighed loudly. “Dad. You said you’re not supposed to be spending money like that.”

“I know what I said.”

“You said you’d stop.”

“Emika.”

I didn’t catch the warning in his voice. “You promised,” I insisted, louder now. “Now you’re not going to have money again. You said—”

“Stop talking.”

His voice cracked like a whip. I froze, my words withering on my tongue, my face turned up in shock at my father’s expression. His eyes had finally found mine, and the light in them shone feverish with fury, red from crying. In a flash, I knew what had happened. There was only one thing that could turn my father from a gentle, lighthearted man into someone angry and cruel.

He’d heard from my mother.

Already, the furious light had started to ebb from his face. “I didn’t mean that,” he said, shaking his head as if confused. “Emi—”

But my own anger had risen now. Before Dad could say anything else, I took a step away and tightened my lips. “She messaged you, didn’t she? What’d she say to you this time? That she misses you?”

“Emika.” He reached for my arm, but I’d already twisted away and was hurrying toward my room. A high-pitched ringing echoed in my ears. The last thing I saw before I slammed my door was the sight of my father standing there before his half creation, alone, shoulders sloped, his figure turned in my direction. Then I crawled onto my bed and began to cry.

Hours passed. Later that night, my door creaked open an inch and I saw my father peek in, holding a plate piled high with pizza. “May I?” he said quietly.

I glared at him from under my blankets as he came in and shut the door behind him. Dark circles rimmed his eyes. For the first time, I realized how exhausted he looked, that he must not have slept well for days. He sat down on the edge of my bed and held the plate out at me. I wanted to be stubborn, to stay mad, but my stomach growled at the smell of tomato and melted cheese, and I dragged myself into a sitting position and reached for a slice.

“Your yearbook looks stunning, Emi,” he said after I’d wolfed down a slice. He gave me a weary smile. “I can tell how hard you worked on it.”

I shrugged, still not ready to let him off the hook, and grabbed a second slice of pizza. “So what happened to you today?” I grumbled.

He stayed silent for a long moment.

“What did she want this time?” I asked. But I already knew. Every six months or so, my mother would contact him because she missed him, only to disappear again. She never mentioned me. Not once.