It seemed a small army of nurses appeared from nowhere, and the woman, the inmate, was granted exactly what she asked for. The French doors overlooking the private lawn were unlocked, a small patio table and chairs exposed. Yet the strangeness of the prison was apparent to Corday, the thickness of the glass, the fact the exterior doors were made of dense metal and not wood, that they had been painted white to seem inviting and not vault-like, didn’t add up.
Claire was raised from her chair, the soft green of her dress settling around her legs. Her doctor took her into the sun. In the midst of the commotion of white coats and guards, Corday wandered about her room, the natural appearance of it, finding nothing clinical. He would have thought it was all a sham if not for the watercolors littering the blue walls.
Everything was images of Thólos, the horrors she’d seen, the Da’rin marked body of the tyrant in several of them. Between the finished paintings were dozens that were only a study of silver eyes in every possible expression. Corday was amazed they let her keep such things, all those stark images of Shepherd pinned to the wall as if he were lingering in the room. There was even a portrait of the man practically smiling, a thing Corday stood before, intently studying.
The paper was crinkled, you could see where it had been folded over itself. It was also bloodstained.
Corday reached up and plucked it from the wall, knowing it was a memento from the siege. He did not know what possessed him to turn it over, but he found a note scratched on the back as if written frantically by an author with scant time.
Little one,
I know you understand why I am not with you, even though it may take some time for you to accept. Do not forget that I love you. I love you, Claire O’Donnell, and I know you will be a wonderful mother to our son. I would give my life a thousand times over to assure your security and wellbeing. Knowing how much you dislike when I tell you that I am doing this all for you, I am going to hazard your anger when you read this, and say it again anyway. Everything is for you, my love. Everything I must do.
Promise me that you will tell Collin daily that his father had pride in him, that I loved him.
I will meet death meditating on how I have adored you from the first moment I found your green eyes in the Citadel, redeemed. You were my redeemer. My sky.
Forever,
Shepherd
“I would put that back immediately if I were you.” There was a brisk agitated warning in Premier Dane’s voice. Even her expression was hostile. “She would be very upset should she see you touching it.”
Corday held it up, demanding gruffly, “What the fuck is this?”
It was Dane who took it from Corday’s hands and returned the portrait to its prime position on the wall. Dane’s eyes that lingered over a smaller painting of a little boy with black hair and silver eyes hanging beside it.
“I tried to warn you.” The Premier put an arm around the young Enforcer’s shoulder, less an offer of comfort and more a physical assurance he would follow her. “But you never listen. Come, she is waiting for you outside.”It was humid again, light rainfall scenting the air with the smell of earthy grass. Claire liked when the windows fogged. Everything smelled better for one, the room glowed, the white windowpanes translucent, heaven-like.
She liked to picture the room that way sometimes, as if all that moisture might form into a single massive wave to wash her clean. If she wasn’t careful with those thoughts sometimes they expanded into dark territory, the city being sucked down into the bottom of an ocean, decimated. The imaginings would be paired with intense anger, a racing heart, and loathing.
Deep down, Claire hated Thólos.
She would dream of it burning, feeling only relief as flames devoured her city, and wake up in tears. Every time it happened, the air would be rich with his purr until she was calm again, until she was back in control.
“You have not eaten your lunch, Miss O’Donnell.”
Dipping her paintbrush in red, Claire answered without looking away from her work. “I’m not hungry.”
Approaching slowly so Claire might not panic, Premier Dane said, “I thought you enjoyed the rain. Yet you are agitated and have not touched your last two meals. Therefore, I do believe now might be the time to discuss what you are afraid of.”
Every morning six or seven pills, physical therapy, psychotherapy, group therapy with the other damaged Omegas who dwelled in the house. Then there were the endless injections. Life was always half in a fog, if you could even call what was inside her life. But there was one thing no amount of anti-depressants could alter—the very real fear of the inevitable.