Vain (The Seven Deadly, #1)(36)

He dropped to match my pace. “Much better. Many of their wounds were more superficial than we originally thought. The first girl we’d wrapped, Olivia, is the worst off but conscious now and asking questions. We have high hopes.”

“How are they handling it? The loss?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“As expected. They need time.”

“No, they need their parents.”

“That is the very definition of stolen, Sophie. Nobody ever asks permission.”

When we arrived in the kitchen, we heard the patter of bare feet on the tile floor but saw no one. I went through the swinging door into the eating hall and looked around but saw no one until I turned around and noticed Mandisa, the one who refused to eat, hiding beneath the serving line.

“Mandisa?” I called to her, but she was trembling, too afraid to come out so I went to her instead. “Mandisa, sweetheart,” I said, testing out the word. I’d never genuinely called anyone “sweetheart” before, not without condescension. “Come to me.”

I held out my arms and could feel Dingane steadily approaching me from behind. I lifted my hand to stay him and felt him stop.

Mandisa shook her head and back and forth and squeezed her eyes shut. I took the opportunity to join her underneath the line and Dingane crouched beside us, boxing us in. When Mandisa opened her eyes, they were full of tears, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I grabbed her. I lifted her into my lap and squeezed her to my chest. I rubbed small circles into her back and whispered in her ear. It negated every instinct I owned, but I did it anyway.

“It’s not working. What should I do?” I asked Dingane.

“Keep holding her,” he whispered.

“It’s not working,” I told him and tried to push her on him, but Dingane placed her back in my arms so I squeezed her again.

He placed his hand on my shoulder and held fast. “She needs affection.”

“I’m not doing it right,” I told him, beyond panicked then.

“Yes, you are,” he reassured me.

Dingane sat beside me against the aluminum partition and an instant calming sensation washed over me. I knew I could do it. I knew if Dingane was there to help me that I could help Mandisa. So we stayed silent for what seemed like hours and all I could wonder was if I had it in me to calm a toddler who’d just lost her mother, who refused to eat and was a complete stranger. I wondered if her life would always be teeming with the strife she so obviously struggled with. I wondered if she would continue to starve herself with grief, or if we’d be able to feed her through a tube. I wondered if she would ever be a normal child again. I wondered if she would even make it to adulthood, or if she would forever be lost to the cruel world she had already been subjected to at such a young age. I wondered about the practical and impractical and while I pondered her young life, she calmed down. She stopped crying and held on to me tightly.

I turned toward Dingane and felt his relief as well. We were a silly lot, the three of us, burrowed underneath that aluminum serving line, but despite what it appeared to the outside world, we had just conquered a mountain.

Dingane shimmied out of our cozy spot, but I was hindered by toddler so he dragged me out by my hips and practically lifted the two of us off the ground in one fell swoop, sending shivers down my spine.

“That was impressive,” I deadpanned.

“Thank you,” was all he replied, making me smile.

I followed Dingane into the kitchen and he removed my food, dumping it into a pot to reheat it for me. I tried to hop onto the counter with Mandisa in my arms but failed miserably.

Dingane rolled his eyes and easily lifted Mandisa and me easily onto the counter. My cheeks flamed when he touched my waist, but he didn’t seem to notice, too engrossed in stirring it seemed. I watched him in that moment and was overcome with attraction. It felt so wrong to focus on the boy before me when I held a very needy girl in my arms, but I couldn’t help it. I turned my face away from him and brought Mandisa closer to me, laying my cheek on her head the way I’d seen Sav’s mom do it a thousand times before.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN





“Mercy’s back today,” Dingane told Karina at lunch.

“I was wondering when she’d be back,” I stated.

It’d been over a week since we’d seen Mercy, and Dingane and I’d taken over the laundry duties while she’d been gone. I wasn’t wondering, really, I was dying for her to come home. Teaching all day and doing laundry all night was becoming unbearable, even Dingane was complaining and he never complained, ever.

“Where’d she go?” I asked.

“South Sudan. She’s family there. She was checking on them.”

“Isn’t that rather dangerous?”

“Yes,” Dingane answered shortly.

“Okay,” I sang.

“He tried to convince her not to leave, but she wouldn’t listen. Her aunt’s been sick for months,” Karina explained.

“Oh, I see.”

Mercy chose that moment to walk through the eating hall and waved at me. I waved enthusiastically, unsure if I was happy to see her because I wouldn’t have any more laundry to do, or if it was because she was back safe and sound. I frowned into my plate. When she approached I found myself jumping up and hugging her. Huh, guess I sincerely missed her.