Chapter Twenty-Six

Lee had his arms around Sara, but his eyes were on Finn. It didn't seem to matter what Sebastian did, Finn was beyond being comforted. He knelt beside Caleb, his eyes stark with a grief that was past all bearing. Lee finally saw just how much those two meant to one another. Lee had known that Caleb was upset when Finn got shot, but Caleb couldn't show it. Didn't know how to, maybe. He just got angry. But Finn didn't even seem to know where he was, and it hurt to watch. He didn't feel Sebastian's hands holding his shoulders, or hear Sebastian's voice in his ear. He was lost.

And Arthur was dead. Lee was holding Sara mostly to keep her from looking at the body, which was still oozing blood, slumped against Caleb's duffel bag. Lee shuddered. There was a dead person in his house. They would have to throw that bag away. Caleb's baseball things— would he even need them anymore?— no, he couldn't think like that, he couldn't. But the worry was crawling around in the pit of his stomach like something alive. Caleb's arm . . .

Then Lee saw the trickle of blood at the corner of Caleb's mouth, and his arms locked tight around Sara. Caleb was struggling to breathe, he saw. His chest wasn't rising and falling like it should, it was hiccupping, like he was choking, even though he wasn't conscious. Oh god. Internal bleeding? If they couldn't get him to the hospital fast enough, he could . . . no, that just couldn't be. But Arthur had hit him very, very hard, and it was possible. It would explain the state Finn was in, wouldn't it?

"Lee," Sara whimpered, struggling against his tight hold. "What is it?"

It took him a minute to remember how to let her go. He kept his hand on the back of her head, keeping her from turning and seeing the body.

"Caleb's hurt," he grated out. "It's pretty bad."

Sara cried out and tried to pull away from him, and he tightened his arms. But when she saw Finn, her movements stilled, and a pleading look from her caused Lee to let her go. Then she walked up to Finn slowly, and reached over Sebastian's outstretched arms to put her hand on his head.

"Shhh." Lee was hypnotized by her slow, sure movement. "Finn," she said firmly. "Calm down, now."

"But I . . . if he dies, I . . ."

"He won't die," she said, running her fingers through his hair. Caleb's blood had gotten onto him, and his tears were creating lurid pink streaks on his face as he bowed it and let Sara touch him. "Hush, now." She lifted her fingers calmly and shook away strands of Finn's pale hair—a morbid parody of that day her own hair had started falling Finn's hair had been yanked out by that man. "It's going to be all right, Finn. It's over now."

Sebastian pulled Finn back against him, holding his twin against his chest almost the way Lee used to hold Ril when he was having an attack. Sara went down on one knee beside them so she could keep stroking her hand over Finn's hair and cheek. She was crying, too, Lee realized. She was using her free hand to wipe away her tears. He hurried forward to kneel beside her, but he kept himself turned toward the body. It seemed deeply wrong, somehow, to turn his back on it.

The police arrived first. Guns drawn. When you reported gunfire and crazy people, the authorities tended to take it seriously. Luckily they were already on their knees, all that was left to do was separate from each other and lace their fingers behind their heads. It was stunningly hard to pull away from his companions.

Finn did as he was told, but he was so racked by his emotions that he ended up with his face on the ground, bent in half. "Please," he cried out. "Please just help him. He's hurt."

"This one's dead," said one of the policemen, standing by Arthur.

Sebastian was the one who shuddered at that.

"This guy's in bad shape," said a female officer, who was looking at Caleb. "Where's that fucking ambulance?"

That question was answered almost immediately as the emergency personnel hurried into the room with a stretcher lofted high to get it up the stairs.

"All of you, stay where you are," they were ordered. Lee wanted nothing more than to comfort Sara. She had to be terrified. But he knew better than to move. "Who killed this man?" the woman asked.

"Caleb did, the one they're helping" Lee said after a moment. "That man, he . . . He was hurting us. He was using that baseball bat, you can see what he did to Caleb. He was going to kill Finn. Caleb had to shoot him, he was going to kill at least one of us."

"Where did the gun come from?"

"It's mine," Sebastian spoke up. "It's legal, I promise."

"Don't suppose you have the paperwork for that."

"It's in my apartment. In Calistoga. I'm sorry."

"Whose baseball bat?"

"Caleb's."

"And who the fuck is this guy?"

"His name is Arthur Ortega."

"And just who the fuck is Arthur Ortega?"

"No, I'm not saying anything else right now," Sebastian whispered, his eyes locked on Finn's shaking form. "I want a lawyer."

The cop snorted in disgust and cuffed Sebastian and started reciting his rights, while the male cop was peering down at Lee and Sara.

"Who are you two?"

"I live here," Lee said. "She lives next door."

"Did either of you touch the gun?"

"No, sir."

"What about the bat?"

"No, sir. Well, not today. I've touched the bat before. Caleb takes me to the park to practice, sometimes."

"How old are you, kid?"

"Sixteen."

"How about the girl, how old are you?"

"The same," Sara whispered in a trembling voice. "I'm sixteen, too."

"Where is your legal guardian?"

"What the FUCK?" hollered a voice from outside the apartment. "SARA!"

She closed her eyes in relief. "That's him. That's my older brother. He's my guardian."

"Sara! What's going on? What the— whoa, crap, okay, okay! I've got my hands up, see? I'm not going to do anything. I just want to see my sister. Where the hell is my sister?"

"Tom, I'm all right!" Sara called out, and Lee hoped Tom could hear her from out there. "Tom, I'm safe! Stay calm!"

"Sara, what the hell happened?"

"Uh . . . I'm not sure."

"Okay, okay," the cop said to them both when Tom took up an argument with someone outside. "And you, son, where's your guardian?"

"I don't have one. I'm sorry. I'm emancipated. That's why I live here. I live here with Caleb, the one they're taking to the hospital, and Finn, the one who— who's crying a lot." Lee felt his voice falter on Finn. He was too distraught to even speak to the female cop, who was getting seriously agitated despite how quietly Sebastian was sitting there and behaving. "Please, leave him alone. He didn't do anything. He's just really upset."

The officer who was questioning the two of them nodded to his colleague, and she backed off a step.

"So how did this man come to be here tonight? The man who's been shot?"

"He knows Finn and Sebastian. Those two. He knew them a long time ago, they said. He's really crazy. Or—he was, I guess. Oh, god. Listen. We were just in here watching TV, okay? He went next door and grabbed Sara and started hurting her. He dragged her over here. He was threatening to strangle her if we didn't let him inside. So we did. See what he did to her head and her throat? He came in, and he was hurting Finn. We tried to stop him, and he started swinging that bat around. He hurt Caleb really, really bad. Sebastian got out his gun and told him to stop, but he just knocked the gun right out of Sebastian's hands. Caleb picked it up after he got hit on the arm. I think . . . I think his arm is broken really badly. He shot Arthur, and then he passed out."

"Where were you during all of this?"

"After Sebastian lost the gun, I tried to take the bat away from Arthur. He hit me with it."

"Are you injured? Do you need medical attention?"

"No, sir, I'm all right. But please, let Sara go. Her brother should take her to the doctor. She has leukemia, sir, she's supposed to take it easy and she hit her head really hard—" Lee didn't know when he'd started crying, but that was the moment at which he began in earnest. He was having a hard time speaking. Sara was beside him, crying as much as he was.

"Is that true, Sara? You have leukemia?"

She nodded, and she removed her hat so he could see her head. "But I'm okay, I think. My head just hurts."

"Do you have anything to add to this, miss?"

"Not really," she said, raising her eyes to him, and Lee felt a burst of pride that she was being so brave. "I don't know that man at all. He just came into my apartment, when I was there alone, and he grabbed me and said I was his leverage. I didn't know what he meant. He brought me over here and he was choking me, and he pushed me down. It happened the way Lee said it did. He was hurting us, and I think he was going to kill Finn. He . . . He had the bat . . . He was going to kill him," she sobbed. "Will—will Caleb be in trouble?" The question was ignored. There were five police officers swarming around the apartment now, and the man who'd been questioning them stood up and looked at the woman he'd come in with.

"The kids are fine. I want to release the girl to go with her brother. You, kid, I need some proof of your emancipation. Talk to me. Is there someplace you can go for the rest of the night?"

"I think it would be okay if I went with her," Lee said, hesitating even though he knew that Tom would put up with it. It was more that he was past the point of rational thought right now. Why did everyone want him to think? "But, um, I'd rather go to the hospital, and wait to see how things turn out with Caleb—"

"You're going to be better off just staying with her, okay?" the officer said, looking uncomfortable. "He's going to be under arrest, you won't be allowed to see him."

Lee pressed his forehead into his hand and choked back another bout of tears. He had to get through this. Caleb was going to be okay. He had to think that.

"What about Finn?" he asked hopefully. "Is he allowed to go?"

"We're still working on that," he answered unhelpfully.

Things just swirled around him meaninglessly after that. He didn't remember going to his room and digging in the desk, but he found himself standing in front of the officer and presenting him with the requested documents. Sara had already been escorted out and given over to Tom, and Lee had a sort of afterthought that he should be over there, but his legs wouldn't move. He could hear Molly, the girl from the office, talking to them out there. Her high-pitched, exciteable voice was unmistakable. Funny, he'd never thought about where she lived. She must live here, at the apartments. He wondered if she would call Yvonne and have them all evicted for this.

"Come on, kid, you can go now," the man said to him, leading him carefully on a path out of the apartment. Past the body. They were taking photographs of it.

Lee looked back over his shoulder at Finn. Sebastian had already been taken away, he was under arrest since he wouldn't answer their questions. Finn was standing up straight now, face clear and stoic as he spoke. It was so false, couldn't they see how desperate he was? Lee didn't want to leave him alone like that. But he had no choice, they were making him go, and Finn didn't even turn to see him as he went.

"Lee!" Molly cried out, diving at him as soon as he appeared and clutching at him. "Are you hurt?"

He stared at her. A nice, naïve, sweet girl like Molly shouldn't have to see this stuff.

"No. Sorry. I have to go."

He walked into Sara's apartment and shut the door behind him.

After Lee had told Tom as much as he knew, Yuri convinced him to leave them alone. Tom wanted to make Sara go to bed, but Yuri made him go to bed, instead. He made them some hot chocolate, but they didn't drink it. All three of them ended up sitting in the living room in silence. After half an hour of tossing and turning, Tom came back out to wait with them.

Lee called Averil, waking him up and scaring him silly. When he heard what happened, he tried to make Zack bring him over, but Lee convinced him to stay put. The police would just want to question him, too, if he came.

Tom decided that Sara would be okay for the night, even though he wanted to take her to the doctor in the morning to make sure her throat hadn't been damaged. She fell asleep in Lee's lap after a while. Lee held her close and stared at the wall. They could hear the voices and tramping feet next door, though it was too muffled to understand. Yuri and Tom eventually dozed off together, crumpled in a heap of limbs on the floor. Lee watched everyone sleep and became sort of numb. His legs were asleep beneath Sara, and his brain had ceased to function. He just waited. He didn't know what he was waiting for.

And then came the knock at the door.

The police? Maybe it's Finn. No, he wouldn't knock.

Lee carefully eased Sara off his lap and onto the sofa, then limped on his pins-and-needles legs to answer the door. Tom and Yuri fumbled into consciousness as he stepped over them, and they both stood up behind him.

A statuesque woman and a petite teenaged girl waited in the hallway. He didn't recognize either of them. The woman wore dark slacks and a white blouse and was yammering into a cell phone. The younger girl was wearing some kind of ludicrous outfit that involved way too much black lace. She smiled at him.

"Hi. Do you live next door?"

"Uh, yes."

"Oh, good. We're here to save the day, but the police said we had to do it from this apartment."

"Are you Tanya?"

"That's right."

"Thank God," Lee mumbled, opening the door wide enough to admit the two of them. "Is that your sister?"

"In law," Tanya corrected. "That's Susan."

The woman must be used to listening to two conversations at once, because she noticed she was being talked about and lifted her hand in a brief greeting. Her conversation was getting rather stern, he noticed. Tom and Yuri were being quiet, carefully lifting Sara up and sitting on either side of her and just waiting for an explanation.

"I'm Lee," he said. "Finn lives next door, too, but he's still over there. Did they say when they were going to let him go?"

"What are they holding him for?" Tanya frowned.

"I don't know. Nothing. He didn't do anything. Arthur—the dead guy—was hurting Finn, and he was going to kill him. That's why Caleb shot him. They just keep asking Finn questions, even though he's devastated and they should just leave him alone."

Lee hadn't thought he was still so close to tears, but he had to stop speaking to keep himself from crying again.

Susan abruptly cut off her conversation and snapped her phone shut. "This Finn person, he hasn't been placed under arrest?"

"I don't think so."

"I'll be right back," she said with a grim look, and marched out of the apartment.

"Don't worry about your friend Finn," Tanya said with a smile. "Susan will take care of it."

"I can't help it," Lee blurted out. "He loves Caleb. I mean, um . . ."

Tanya's mouth fell open with shock. "You mean . . . oh, wow. Caleb is actually with someone?"

"Uh, sort of. They used to just be roommates, you know. But Finn almost died a few months ago, and now they're . . . um."

"Caleb is a gigantic idiot," she said with feeling. "I can't believe he didn't tell me."

Susan marched back in, pushing Finn ahead of her. "Assholes," she snorted. "They were making him think he had to stay."

Finn was a sickly, ashen colour, and even his vibrantly blue eyes seemed washed out. He was only moving because Susan was pushing him. What had they been doing to him over there?

"Finn?" Lee asked hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

Finn stared at him like he'd never seen him before. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

"Oh, sweetheart," Tanya said with great compassion. "Come here." She took Finn's hand in both of hers, and led him to the sofa. She didn't have to ask, or even give them a look—Tom and Yuri just automatically stood up, Tom lifting Sara up with him. "Sit down," she instructed, and he obeyed her mechanically. She sat beside him, and kept holding his hand. "Susan, tell them what you found out."

Susan nodded firmly. "Right. I have Caleb's power of attorney, so I was able to talk to the hospital. He's in surgery, still. They were talking about amputating his arm—"

"No!" Lee cried out.

"But I talked them out of it," Susan continued, narrowing her eyes at him. "Mind you, he's not going to get full function of it back. He likely won't be able to grip with that hand ever again, and it remains to be seen whether that elbow will bend. He'll likely have to have more than one surgery. His elbow's just mush, at this point. As for his other injuries, one rib was totally broken and it caused a collapsed lung. Luckily, they got to it in plenty of time, and they'll be able to repair that."

"He's not going to die?" Lee whispered.

"He's not going to die," Susan confirmed. "And if I'm understanding what happened tonight correctly, Caleb was acting in self-defense so obvious that I should have him released on bail before the hospital's even finished with him."

Finn still didn't seem capable of speech, so Lee asked for him. "What about Sebastian?"

"Who is that?"

"Sebastian is Finn's brother. It was his gun, and he was nervous, so he wouldn't talk to the police. They had to arrest him, and he said he was going to get a lawyer."

Susan threw up her hands. "Why didn't anybody mention that sooner? Okay, let me see here." She stood still for a moment, tapping her index finger against her lips. "Can I leave Tanya here? You boys don't mind?"

Tom and Yuri might have normally been upset to have their home suddenly invaded, but even Tom had a heart.

"It's fine," Tom said brusquely.

"Great. Kid, did Sebastian use the gun?"

"No, not really. He got it out, but he didn't shoot it."

"Give me an hour, two hours, tops. I'll go get the brother. Should I bring him back here?"

"I guess so," Yuri sighed.

"Right. Tanya, leave your phone on. Amy will freak if she can't reach either of us."

Tanya nodded serenely. "It's on."

"Thanks. I'll be back soon. Try not to create total mayhem, okay?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tanya replied smoothly. "Good luck."

Susan swept out and shut the door behind her with a firm dignity.

"She's great, isn't she?" Tanya said. "Amy's even more amazing, but she has a really important case she's arguing first thing in the morning. She'll be arriving tomorrow afternoon."

"Thank you so much for coming," Lee said fervently. "I didn't know what to do, and . . ."

It was left unsaid that Finn was in no state to be making decisions and trying to procure legal counsel for anyone. Although Finn made it clear a moment later that he was thinking and not just in shock.

"He won't be able to play baseball anymore," he said in a hollowed-out voice. "He'll lose his scholarship."

There was a beat of silence.

"Don't worry about that for right now," Tanya said, squeezing his hand. "That's something to think about a little later, when we get things sorted out."

"But if I hadn't— This is my fault, isn't it?" He sounded strangely bewildered.

"Now that is just an insult to Caleb," Tanya answered, frowning at him. "He is nothing if not capable of making his own decisions. He decided to risk this. And this is something you need to understand, too," she said, softening a little. "I've known Caleb since I was seven years old, and I know he wouldn't have made that decision unless you were worth the risk. So you'd better start working on accepting that now, because if you still think this is your fault when he next sees you, he's probably going to hurt you."

Finn tried to laugh, but it got stuck in his throat and he just choked, instead. "God, I'm so tired," he whispered.

Tanya gently pulled him down until he was leaning over and resting his head on her shoulder. She twined their hands together in her lap, and Finn sighed deeply. Lee felt better, seeing that. It was a bit awe-inspiring, to see how quickly she'd taken charge of him. It seemed to be working, to some extent.

"Right," Yuri spoke up, sounding brisk. "It's going to be a while before anything else happens, so why don't we all get some rest? We're asleep on our feet, here." He looked around at the limited accommodations. "We've got a few extra blankets, and we'll just have to make do with that."

"We'll be fine right here, if that's okay with you," Tanya said.

Lee shrugged. "I'll be fine with the floor."

"I don't want you to sleep on the floor," Sara said in dismay.

Lee gave her a crooked smile. "I've slept worse places," he reminded her. "It's okay. You need to get some sleep, princess, don't worry about me."

There were a few more hasty murmurings, and Yuri gave them the small stack of spare blankets they owned, and then Sara was ushered off to bed and the older couple retreated to their bedroom. Lee spread out the blankets, and suddenly felt as though he were intruding, like Tanya and Finn should have some privacy.

Tanya didn't seem to notice, though. She smiled at him warmly.

"She's lovely," she said.

"Yeah, she is," Lee smiled back.

"Do you really call her princess?"

"Finn started it," he said, eyeing his distressed friend. Finn was being very still and quiet, just resting his head on Tanya's shoulder and allowing her to hold onto his hand. "We sort of vowed to be her loyal knights," he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed by that and electing to busy himself with creating a nest of blankets on the floor. "I'm glad you noticed how pretty she is," he blurted out. "She's been feeling sort of . . ." He couldn't even say the word ugly in relation to Sara, even though that was how she kept describing herself. Her fuzzy head and bruised skin and wretchedly thin state didn't make her ugly, no matter what she said.

"She's been sick, hasn't she? Is it cancer?"

Lee lay down on his blankets and looked at the ceiling. "Yeah. But I gave her my bone marrow, and she's starting to get better."

"I'm glad. But she is definitely the sort of person who's lovely no matter what," Tanya said firmly.

"She's special like that," Lee said, wriggling to get more comfortable.

"Special to you, too," Tanya observed.

"Yeah." He didn't even blush. Maybe he was too exhausted and heartsick to blush.

"I'm sorry," Finn said suddenly, lifting his head. "I'm so sorry she got hurt, Lee." He stared down at where his hand was wrapped in Tanya's. "I should have left before anyone got hurt," he whispered.

"Sara is going to be fine," Lee said firmly. "And it wasn't your fault, anyway. It's not like you blamed me when Seth shot you, right? And if you're talking about Caleb, he'd be the first one to tell you that Arthur could make his own decisions."

"That doesn't take away the fact that he wouldn't have been hurt if I hadn't been here."

Lee looked up at Tanya. "What was Caleb like, when he lived with you?"

"Angry," she said immediately, her eyes sad. "Angry and bitter and cold and distant. I was his only friend and he got into a fight every other day, it seemed like. I made him move here because I thought he needed to be away from us, to see if he could learn how to be around other people."

Lee flicked his eyes over to Finn. He had a distant memory of Caleb being that way, but it seemed like they were talking about some other person. The Caleb he knew was deep and intense and loyal, and the anger was all a front to protect him from the possibility of losing the people he cared about. And out of all of them, Finn had the most to do with that.

"You really think he'd have been better off that way?"

Finn shuddered.

"I'm glad you're here, Finn," Tanya said softly. "I'm glad to have the opportunity to know you. You don't really believe that right now, though, do you?"

"I don't know," he whispered. "I'm not good at belief. But I did finally understand something. If— Even if he had died— I wouldn't kill myself. I wanted to. But I won't. Because I finally see how much my life is worth to him. So I have to—" He stopped and laid his head down on Tanya's shoulder again.

"Let's get some sleep, okay?" she said, speaking as though Finn were a child, and leaning back so he could lean more comfortably against her. And like a child, he obediently closed his eyes and collapsed on her. Lee stood up and draped a blanket over them, then curled up in his nest. Even as troubled as he was, he was so tired that he fell asleep almost immediately.

He woke for a moment when Susan led Sebastian inside. A glance at his cellphone showed him that it was five-thirty in the morning. Susan put her finger to her lips when she saw that Tanya and Finn were both still dozing.

"I managed to convince them that owning a gun does not automatically make you a criminal, so he's in the clear. There's still a few people next door. I'll go see what's happening, and then I'll call the hospital for an update. You guys get some sleep."

Lee stood and gestured for Sebastian to take his makeshift bed. The circles under his eyes looked like bruises, and the golden stubble on his chin made him look ragged. But Sebastian shook his head, scrubbing his hands wearily against his pale cheeks. He crept over Lee's blankets and sat down at Finn's side. The movement didn't actually wake Finn, but he lifted his head and said something incoherent. Sebastian carded his fingers through Finn's hair, and Finn followed the touch to its source, shifting to lean against his brother without even opening his eyes. Sebastian put his arms around Finn and closed his eyes with a weary sigh. Tanya snuffled and shifted in her sleep, and Sebastian reached out with one hand to lay it on her shoulder. She settled down peacefully again.

"Don't wake us up until there's news about Caleb," he said to Lee.

"Caleb," Finn mumbled.

Sebastian sighed again and cradled Finn's head against his shoulder, his sorrow evident. Lee was glad that Sebastian was here, even though things had gone this way. He knew what it was, to have a brother, and he knew they never should have been parted. He'd never understood the way other kids at school complained about their siblings. He'd never understood that it was possible for siblings to not be close, to not be grateful for one another. When you had to fight so hard just to be allowed to be together, it made each moment something meaningful.

Even so, he was glad Ril hadn't been here. It might have been nice to be able to put his head on his brother's shoulder and give in to trembling and shock, but it was better that he hadn't been involved. He'd been hurt enough. It was good that Ril was with somebody who knew that. Zack was, if anything, more adamant than Lee about keeping pain away from Ril.

They'd all been hurt enough, he decided. All Lee wanted now was to be able to keep pain from touching anyone in his family.

The next few days were awful. It felt like they were in limbo or something. Once Amy had arrived, looking polished and irritable, they'd gone to a hotel. Amy had rented out a big suite, with two bedrooms in it. Finn and Sebastian slept in one, the women in the other, and Lee slept on the very comfortable sofa.

Time dragged on painfully. Tanya left one day to oversee the cleaning of the apartment—she wouldn't let anyone else do it—and Finn drifted around the suite like a lost puppy to entire time she was gone. Not even Sebastian could get through to him. Susan reported that Caleb's surgery had gone very well, that he might not even need another one, and that he was extremely doped up while they watched him for possible infections.

Tanya brought Sara back with her, for which Lee was more grateful than he could say. Talking on the phone when you were so used to just being together was maddening.

"Is Tom pissed at me?" Lee asked as soon as he had her safely in his arms.

"When is he not?" Sara joked.

"No, really."

She shook her head. "I don't think so. He's moved on to being pissed at Tanya for stealing me away."

The girls exchanged a look of shared amusement, obviously thinking about something Tom had done. Lee got a strange feeling they'd been bonding while watching the bloodstained carpet get torn out and replaced. But he didn't mind. Sara had been pretty popular at school until she got sick, and now she had very few friends left. It was pretty hard to know how to be a friend to someone who had cancer, he supposed, but that didn't make him like it any better. Rob, of all people, was the only one who had stuck around through everything. Anyway, he liked Tanya. He hoped she and Sara would be friends.

And clearly they would be. Tanya grabbed Finn so he'd stop shuffling around like a zombie, then grabbed Sara, and the two girls had their heads together in giggly girl conversation in no time. Apparently, Tanya liked to design clothes. That was dangerous; Sara loved clothes. It was actually terribly amusing to watch Tanya absentmindedly holding onto Finn with one hand and sketching designs to show Sara with the other.

Ril and Zack came by for a while. Tanya won them over, too, but she seemed to realize that when the four of them got together, they were two couples. She graciously extricated herself after a few minutes and spent the rest of the day with Sebastian and Finn. She and Sebastian seemed to get along really well, actually; Lee heard her teasing him for living in Italy without learning about European fashion and for his (apparently poor) musical tastes. The two of them even got Finn to talk a little.

Anytime the conversation stopped during those few days, the silence became thick and choking. So they just kept talking. It was mostly up to Tanya and Sara to keep everything going, because none of the three men were up for it. Lee felt bad about that—it wasn't like Sara didn't care, and Tanya was the one who'd known Caleb the longest. They were worried, too. But the two of them wore the responsibility well. Amy and Susan, for their part, spent a lot of time on the phone and at their laptops.

It finally happened on the fifth day. Amy and Susan left, armed with briefcases, and they didn't return for hours. The two of them had been taking care of bringing food to the suite, and everyone got hungry when they didn't show up. Sebastian convinced Finn to go with him to get something—Lee had no idea how he'd managed to get Finn to go out, so he assumed Sebastian was secretly a wizard.

When the door opened, Lee looked up expecting food, but it wasn't Finn and Sebastian. It was Amy and Susan, supporting a staggering giant between them.

Caleb's cast ran from shoulder to wrist, and his open jacket revealed that he wore no shirt, just a thick layer of white gauze. He was sweating and having a difficult time breathing, but he raised his gaze defiantly.

"I fucking hate hospitals," he declared. "I made them let me go."

His eyes searched the room, and they all knew what he was looking for.

Tanya stepped forward, laying her hand gently on his arm. "He'll be back soon. Come with me."

As they passed by Lee and Sara, where they sat on the sofa, Caleb reached out his good hand for a moment and ruffled Lee's hair.

"Hey, kids. Stop looking like you're going to cry. I'm fine."

He followed Tanya into the room where Finn and Sebastian had been sleeping, and she closed the door. Amy and Susan gave one another looks of deep relief.

Caleb sat down on the bed with a groan. His arm was already driving him completely insane, hanging stiffly at his side like this. He was mad at Susan. He'd rather they had just cut the damn thing off. He didn't want to go through a series of surgeries and physical therapy and still never regain the use of it. He wasn't one to complain about pain, but this had him pretty much at his limit.

Tanya was gazing up at him with a sweet, soft smile on her face, and Caleb felt suddenly like he was safe at home. He knew he wasn't, it was just a hotel and they were still in California, not Massachusetts. But he felt it all the same. It was Tanya that did it. It was always her.

"Hi," she said softly.

"Mmph."

She laughed. "Oh, good, I was afraid you'd changed so much I wouldn't recognize you anymore."

"Who says I've changed?"

"Well, everyone," she laughed. Her smile evened out, and she looked up at him very seriously. "Have you finally figured it out, Caleb?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "I know I didn't want to kill anyone. All I wanted to do was be able to protect what I cared about. I guess I found out that there are some things I can't protect just by being strong. Killing that guy didn't solve anything." He stopped there. He wanted to see Finn. Now.

Tanya just laid her hand on him again gently. "I'd say you've got the idea," she said. Well, she was just brimming with hope and happiness, wasn't she? "I'm happy to see you, Caleb."

There were noises out there. The door slammed, there were raised voices.

"Let me through." That was Finn. Caleb was suddenly frozen. What if . . .?

"Just wait, blondie," they heard Susan say.

Tanya opened the door. "You can come in."

Finn was there. Caleb didn't know what to say. He just waited. Finn would tell him, right? He wasn't shy about telling Caleb that he hated him. He watched Finn walk toward him and felt his heart beating too hard. It actually hurt, although that might be due to his injuries.

Then Finn punched him. Caleb tried not to fall onto his broken arm. The pain in his jaw warred with the sudden confusion in his head.

"What was that for?"

Finn smiled. "Call it payback, Hot Shot."

Caleb found himself smiling back. "I'll kick your ass for that."

Tanya rolled her eyes and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Caleb's smile fell. He knew that Finn didn't hate him, but he didn't know what else might lay between them. He didn't know what to say, or if he should say anything. He'd killed Arthur. Finn had cared about Arthur. And Caleb had found out things about Finn that Finn hadn't wanted him to know. He considered it likely that he should keep his mouth shut until Finn told him where things stood.

Finn, too, was silent for a long time. He was just stood there and looked at him.

"I can see that you want me to live," he finally said. "So I will." He stepped forward, and touched his finger to the massive cast on Caleb's arm. "But will you hate me for this?"

Caleb wouldn't have had to kill anybody if Finn had been a little stronger, or a little more able to accept himself. It was just part of the paradox, that he could move mountains if it was for someone else, but his self-loathing had led to this. But Caleb couldn't find it in him to hold that against Finn. Hadn't he just said that he would be trying harder from now on? Caleb was intelligent enough to hear what Finn couldn't say—that he was going beyond just physically caring for himself, that he was going to try to move forward. That's all Caleb had wanted. So what was there to hate, really?

Finn was using Caleb's arm as a way to ask the question, even though there was so much more to it. As for his arm . . . Caleb knew what he'd given up. He'd known when he did it that he'd never play baseball again, and he'd stopped wanting to be a cop a while ago. He realized that he might not be able to ride his bike anymore, if he couldn't get the use of his hand back. He had chosen this. What was Finn truly asking?

"You mean do I think Arthur's right about you? That you're a thief and a whore and a liar and all that?"

Finn closed his eyes and drew his hand back.

"I think you're a liar, anyway," Caleb said. "But since you're not going to do that anymore, then I don't care."

"I'm not?"

"What the fuck would be the point?"

"I guess that's true," Finn said with a bitter laugh.

"Sit down," Caleb commanded him.

Finn did as requested and sat beside him, but his eyebrows were raised to ask why.

"I like looking at people when I talk to them," he growled. "And while I could get up if I was forced to, I think I'd rather just keep sitting if it's all the same to you."

Finn let out a much more genuine laugh at that. "When did you start explaining yourself?"

"Since I realized you don't have a fucking clue why I do anything."

Finn smiled sadly. "I think I get it now."

"Good, then you can explain it to me," Caleb muttered. He didn't know why he did it, either. He knew that Finn was important. He knew that he would take whatever action he had to not to lose him. He just didn't know why it was Finn. He was pretty sure he used to hate the dumbass.

Was it just because Finn needed him so much?

It couldn't be that. Because he needed Finn, too. For whatever reason.

"Can we talk about what's going to happen now?"

Caleb immediately felt trepidation. He wasn't sure he was interested in talking about that. He kind of just wanted to get comfortable with the fact that he wasn't dead and Finn wasn't running away. Obviously Finn's deeper issues weren't going to be resolved overnight, so maybe they could wait another day or two.

"Right now?"

"Well, I thought this would go to trial pretty soon, right?"

Oh. That stuff.

"What's to talk about? You and Sebastian will have to testify, probably Lee and Sara, too. Susan's going to be my legal counsel, which means Amy and Tanya can both write character letters for me. Susan's been quizzing me about everyone I know. She wants Tom and Yuri and Matt Decker to write some letters, too."

"So you probably won't have to go to jail, right?"

"Susan and Amy said so."

"Thank God," Finn sighed. His hand crept out, almost touched him, retreated again. "There's something . . . I think some stuff about my past might come up during the trial. I did a lot of stupid stuff when I was a kid, Caleb. Things . . . Things happened to me. Arthur wasn't exactly wrong."

"That's debatable."

"I want to tell you about it before that. I know that it's not going to make a difference to you, I finally get that. But I'd rather you knew before anyone else did."

Caleb took a moment to gauge himself. He was in pain, but he could handle it. He'd been sleeping for days, so he wasn't tired. The pain made him nauseous, so he wasn't hungry. He figured he could make it through what would inevitably be a long story.

"Okay. If that's what you want."

There was a flash of gratefulness in his eyes before it was lost in a quiet darkness. "I hardly know where to start."

With what Caleb figured was coming, this wasn't going to be easy for Finn. They were, he suspected, about to have a conversation about sexual abuse, among other things. It wasn't something he'd want to talk about, if it were him. But Finn wasn't him, was his direct opposite in just about every way that mattered. That was what had drawn them together to begin with, so he was learning to just let Finn be Finn. If he needed to talk about this, then they'd talk about it. Even if Caleb had to pull it out of him by inches.

"Sebastian said you blamed yourself for everything since you were five years old. You could start with whatever happened when you were five years old."

Finn took up a position with his hands clasped together, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the ground. "Yeah. That was when my mother killed herself."

"In a bathtub."

"Yes."

"My father died before we were old enough to remember him. My mother told us they hadn't planned on twins. They'd been hoping for a girl, anyway. Instead, they got us. My father died of meningitis, if I remember correctly, and my mother couldn't manage without him. She was miserable. She got on welfare and did nothing but sleep all day. I think that's when Sebastian started learning to cook."

This was already the worst childhood he'd ever heard of. A five year old wasn't supposed to be learning to feed himself just because his mother was too much of a psycho to do it.

"She blamed us for Dad being dead, and she blamed us for being boys and not a girl . . . I don't know what was wrong with her, exactly. I guess she was just depressed. Anyway, she slit her wrists in the bathtub. She always was pretty dramatic. I was the one who found her. I went in to try to wake her up because Sebastian had a nosebleed—he used to get them all the time, but they cleared up on their own. She was just . . . Dead. All I could think of was that I didn't want Bast to see her. I kept him out of her room. I called our Uncle Greg and told him. He and Aunt Denise showed up with the police, and they took us home with them."

But obviously things had changed, since they'd ended up with Arthur. "Why didn't you stay with them?"

"We did stay with them, for five years. Every minute of it was hell," Finn whispered. "They were cruel people. They didn't hurt us or anything. They just made sure we knew that it was our fault Mom was dead. They didn't want us, they hadn't even known they were supposed to take us if anything happened. They said we ruined their lives. Mom said the same thing, so it was nothing new. By this time, I'd already figured out I was a walking curse, that I ruined lives. But I tried to make sure Sebastian didn't believe it. I told him all the time that it wasn't his fault."

And that was why he'd been so adamant about leaving, even if he was too selfish to follow through with it. He'd thought he was going to ruin their lives. Who really went around for twenty-five years thinking they were a walking curse?

"In the end, they died, too. They were murdered, actually. It was a home invasion. It was really late, we were supposed to be asleep. I heard someone outside, I heard them trying to get in. I hid Sebastian in the attic. I didn't know what was happening, but I knew it was something bad. I locked him in there. I heard my uncle shouting. I heard gunshots. I heard my aunt screaming. I finally went down to see, but the thieves had already left. Now that I think back on the level of violence, on the way they ransacked the house, I'm sure they were methheads or something. At the time, I didn't know anything except how shocked I was. It was . . ."

He was staring at the wall. The nightmare. This was the nightmare that made him scream so much. The other ones made him cry, this one was the one that terrified him.

"My uncle was dead already. They'd shot him in the head. But they'd raped my aunt, and she died more slowly. They cut her throat. She was— she was still alive, when I got there. She was trying to breathe. I didn't know what to do. I thought I should call 911, but I wanted to try to help her first. I tried to hold her throat shut. I was a stupid child. I thought it would stop the bleeding if I kept the gash closed. But she died."

"Fuck."

"I think I must have lost track of time. I didn't remember to call emergency or to let Sebastian out until nearly dawn. I must have spent most of the night with their bodies. And I was pretty clever, too, or at least I'd watched a lot of TV. I knew that they'd go apeshit if they found out about that. I didn't want to be stuck in therapy for the rest of my life, and I really didn't want to be separated from Bast because of it. I washed off the blood on my hands before I did anything, and I pretended I just came down and found them dead. They didn't really bother to double-check. It didn't occur to them that I'd lie about something like that. I still had to go to therapy, though—I'd seen the dead bodies of three members of my family. But they figured I was still sane."

This was the nightmare, all right. Did he actually blame himself, somewhere in his twisted brain, for the fact that he hadn't been able to save her? Well, if Caleb was going to call him an idiot for that, he'd be condemning himself, too. He'd spent a lot of time wracked with guilt for not being able to help his mother. He wanted to say something, but the state Finn had fallen into was pretty eerie. He was so casual about stating that he'd been driven crazy by age ten.

"That was when we entered foster care. I guess it was easier on Sebastian, even though it sucked for him. He only had to deal with two foster homes. The first one was awful. They completely ignored him. Forgot about him, even. It wasn't that they didn't like him, it was that they just didn't care. They didn't ask him if he brushed his teeth or did his homework. They didn't even tell him when they were sitting down to dinner. They accidentally locked him out of the house, a few times."

There was a long silence. Because this was the part where things got really bad, Caleb assumed. "What about you?" he asked.

"I was sent somewhere else. That family wasn't so bad, except they just assumed I was really messed up and couldn't be normal. I mean, they fed and clothed me and took me to school, but they were just . . . It was our neighbours, actually. This lady and her little girl. The lady had a drug problem. A serious drug problem. And she was spending all her money on it. Her little girl was starving. She was a couple years younger than me. My foster family never cooked, they always ate out, or I'd have just stolen food for her. But I had to steal their money. I didn't want to, exactly. But when I told them our neighbour was starving her kid, they just said I didn't have to lie to get attention."

"They were fucking morons," Caleb said with feeling. Why did adults always assume kids wanted to lie? So Finn was messed up, so what? What harm could it have done them to at least try to take him seriously?

"Yes, they were," Finn said with a sad smile. "Anyway, that led to my first stay in juvenile correction, at the age of eleven. I was with other kids my age, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It didn't last long, either. When they released me, they sent me to a really nice family. Those were the ones I was trying to piss off so much, that I told you about before. I just wanted to be with Bast, but nobody cared. They thought I was a problem child, you know, because I'd been stealing and lying and everything. They started out making me go to therapy, but I refused to talk to the doctor. So that family decided to put me in tae kwon do classes, bless them. I was really, really good at it, and I guess I needed something like that. It helped me focus when I just couldn't take it anymore. I honestly think it's what kept me from going completely crazy. But all of the smoking and running away got to them, so they said they couldn't handle me and sent me back."

Caleb would strangle those assholes, if he ever met them. He hadn't been easy to raise, either, but Amy had never given up on him like that. They could have just kept Finn. They could have listened to him, worked something out with his brother. Would it have been so hard?

"The next family was . . . I don't know. The guy was just always angry. With his own family, he only shook them or slapped them or something. But I was just the foster kid. It was okay if he took it out on me, I guess. He hit me all the time."

"You just put up with it?" For some reason, he found that hard to believe. There was no incentive for Finn to just deal with it, and nothing in this story had convinced him Finn would accept abuse so easily.

"I just wanted to come back to the same place every day," Finn said, sounding defeated. "But you're right, I couldn't take it after a while. I was still studying tae kwon do. He didn't know anything about it, so he didn't know how effectively I could fight back. That helped, for a while, that I could hurt him whenever I wanted, and I just chose not to. It was good to know that it was a choice I was making. So I don't remember why I snapped, exactly. But I remember doing it. He was hurting me, so I hurt him back. I did make a half-hearted attempt to tell the police he'd been beating me, but I didn't think it would make any difference. They'd already decided I was a liar, back when I'd been stealing. They just decided I'd assaulted him because I was a bad egg. So they sent me back to juvie." His hands clawed up on his knees. "It was not a good place," he said in a very small voice.

The tone of voice, more than anything, was what clued Caleb in to just how "not good" it was.

"There was a lot of evil people in there. Real criminals. And I was a pretty little blond thirteen-year-old . . ."

Yeah. Way more than just not good.

Finn's voice hardened up, even sounded sort of flippant. "But it wasn't as bad as it could have been, because I found out how fantastic I am at giving blowjobs. I have been told it's like sticking your dick into another dimension. It's not a skill I'm particularly proud of, mind you, but it kept me from getting raped every day."

The attempt at dry humour was more than just pathetic, it was pure torture to listen to. It only served to make it more clear just how bad it had broken him. That he could talk about it in such a detached way . . . Like it was somebody else he was talking about. Like it hadn't really happened. He'd made a fucking joke about it, and Finn only did that when he was running away from something.

"While I was in there, the family that Sebastian lived with decided to move. Somebody got a job transfer, I think. He got sent back to the state, and that's when he got placed with Arthur. I really don't know how Arthur wound up approved by the social care system. But Sebastian was used to being ignored and unloved. Arthur was the complete opposite, so Bast just latched onto him. But when I got released, I was sent to a couple that kinda made me wish I could go back to prison."

Caleb didn't know how it could get worse than it already had.

"He didn't beat me. He beat his wife."

Oh. That's how. For Finn, that would be way worse. "I couldn't just watch. She would make all these excuses for him. She was so stupid, but she loved him. She took whatever he gave her. I couldn't stand it. I saw the way he looked at me. I knew he was interested. So I made a deal with him."

"Fuck, Finn," Caleb muttered.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Two blowjobs a week, and he left her alone. I was already used to it, and if it kept her from getting hurt then I didn't care. I used to talk to Bast on the phone a lot, back then. I kept telling him I was happy where I was. Everything was going great, they were nice people, et cetera. He could tell I was lying, but he couldn't tell what was wrong. It wasn't like I could tell him the truth, you know?"

Because in Finn's mind, it wouldn't have done any good. It would have hurt his brother, but no one would give a shit or help him, because nobody ever gave a shit or helped him. No sense making Sebastian worry. How messed up did you have to be, to think that? Caleb had thought he'd known how screwed up Finn was. Now he was thinking that not even Finn himself really knew how screwed up he was.

"I didn't know how close he and Arthur were getting. I didn't know they were talking about me. I'd talked to Arthur before, when I'd called looking for Sebastian. He'd asked me how I was doing, and I'd told him all the same lies about being happy. But he believed Bast, that I wasn't being honest. So one day when Bast was determined to get the truth out of me, he picked up the other line and eavesdropped on us. We didn't know he was listening. When Bast confronted me, I told him the truth about what was going on with my foster father. By then, the situation was getting worse. It wasn't just twice a week, it was whenever he wanted, and he'd started touching me. I was getting scared. I told Bast I was scared."

"I found out Arthur was listening when he showed up at the front door."

Finn had tears running down his cheeks, now, which fell unheeded. Caleb hated tears, hated them, but he was glad Finn was crying. He was just glad Finn was still capable of crying.

"He practically broke the door down, in fact. I was still on the phone with Bast. He told me to get my things and get in his car. My foster father at the time, the awful one, he tried to pick a fight with Arthur. But Arthur said he'd heard everything, and then he kicked the guy's ass. Just laid into him. I didn't know what to do, so I just did what he said and grabbed my stuff and went with him. I didn't even know who he was, I thought he was a social worker who went nuts or something. But when he pulled up to his house and Bast came running out, I realized who he was. And he said he was keeping me. He carried my stuff inside for me and said he wouldn't send me back to the state. He said I didn't have to go through any more of that. He said he'd have come for me sooner if I hadn't been lying about being happy."

Caleb finally understood the loyalty the twins had felt toward the man. He might have been violent and unstable, but he'd pulled Finn out of hell like some kind of avenging angel. He was Finn's saviour, literally.

"So we lived with him," Finn whispered, finally noticing his own tears and swiping at them. "I was fourteen when he came for me, and we stayed there all through high school. You already know what happened after that."

Yeah, he knew. Finn's saviour had let him down even more than anyone had before. Because Finn had finally trusted someone, finally loved someone, and that person hadn't even hurt him. He'd done the only thing that could possibly be worse. He'd hurt the one thing that was still precious to Finn.

"But I guess I should tell you what happened those last couple of days. I couldn't let him keep hurting Bast, but we were so close to the end of it that it seemed stupid to run away. I decided that I'd pretend I was him. We used to make a game of it, when we were kids. I figured I could still pull it off. So this one night, when Arthur called for Bast, I stole his glasses and went down in his place. I could tell that's why he wanted him, there was something in his voice when he wanted to hurt him. I was just—terrified. It had been a few years since anyone had hurt me, and I didn't want to go back to that, but I had to because it was for Bast . . . He believed I was Sebastian. He kept hitting me and telling me I was a disappointment and making me promise to work harder. I was really stuck on making sure he didn't find out it was me. I wanted to stop him, but I knew Bast wouldn't have. So I had to let him beat me up. It was so bad. I could barely stand up when he was done. Bast said it wasn't usually like that. It was . . . It hurt."

He wasn't talking about the physical pain of being beaten. That was pretty obvious. He was talking about the fact that the man he'd respected and loved had been doing such a thing to his own twin brother right under his nose. It was safe to assume that was the night Arthur killed any ounce of faith Finn had managed to cling to.

"He'd hit me in the face a couple of times. So I had to work it out with Bast that I would wear his glasses anytime we were all home. I'd have to keep pretending to be him for the rest of the school year. If he found out we'd tricked him, I knew he'd take it out on Bast. So I was prepared to take anything I had to. I'd already arranged for us to take our finals early. I'd already forged Bast's signature and enrolled him in culinary school. I didn't know how I'd make it all work, but I was ready."

Ready for anything but what had actually happened. But that, it seemed, was how life always worked for Finn.

"It was the very next day. Bast finished school earlier than I did, but we were still going to be home hours before Arthur, so we weren't worried. I still don't know why he came home early that day. But he did. He came home before I got there. He saw Sebastian, and he knew it was him, only he didn't have the bruises on his face. Bast was in the kitchen, getting a start on dinner. Arthur grabbed a knife and just went after him. He got him a few times. I remember, because I bandaged him up. On the side, and the shoulder, and then his face. When I came home, I found him sobbing his eyes out on the kitchen floor, covered in Bast's blood. I made him leave. I fixed Bast up, and then I stole the money and sent Bast away. And that was the last time I saw either of them, until a few nights ago."

Which just left one question.

"What were you doing, before we got the apartment?"

Finn's eyes had not lifted from his feet all this time. They stayed there, even now.

"Going mad, if I wasn't already," he whispered. "I was alone. I had to be. I spent all my time studying. When I ran out of homework, I started working my way through all the great English and American classic literature. Then I taught myself Latin. I'd been studying French in high school, so I finished learning that. I started drinking too much, and trying to learn Old English. I decided to get another degree, and then another. I had nothing I wanted, and nowhere to go. And I guess I'm still doing that . . . I'm a crazy person, you know that? I'm sorry, I guess, but I really can't help it. I'm actually completely nuts, Caleb."

"Yeah, you are," Caleb said plainly, and Finn finally looked up at him. "But it isn't your fault."

Finn let out a wild laugh. "No, I guess not."

"You're not any of that shit that he said," Caleb said quietly. He himself was a strong person, but he wasn't so sure he could have handled that kind of life any better. "You're not a bad person, and it's not like there was anything else you could have done."

"That's not true," he murmured. "You're wrong, I . . ."

"You stole, but you're not a thief. You thought you had to do something awful, but it doesn't make you a whore. The lying part is about right, but what else were you supposed to do? You're a fucking miracle just for surviving, you know that? I don't care what kind of awful shit you think about yourself, because it's wrong. It's your fucked up brain telling you all the wrong things. I understand why you thought you had to lie to me and run away. I get it. But don't do it anymore. Not with me. I'm not going to betray you, and I'm not going to die. You know that, by now. Can you live with it? Are you even capable of just being yourself and not hiding from me?"

"I have no idea," Finn muttered. "I don't know if I even have a self."

He did. He had something that he'd found locked away that let him care about a couple of orphaned boys he found in the street. Boys who might have ended up like him, if not for the fact that Finn had shown up to keep them safe. "You know what your real problem is? You just fucking care too much."

"Is that what it is?" He sounded amused. "If I could change that, I would. I can't seem to break the habit."

Caleb snorted. "Did I say it was a bad thing?"

"After everything I've just told you, how could it be anything good?"

Over the last few months, they'd developed a habit of physical contact. Caleb hadn't really known just how significant that was, but now that he knew, he wanted it back. He wasn't going to finish this conversation with Finn holding himself at a distance like this.

He reached out with his good hand and snatched hold of Finn's shirt. "Because it's one of the things I like about you, dumbass," he said, and dragged Finn toward him. He came with surprisingly little resistance. Caleb pulled on him until Finn was close against his side, and he kept his hand clenched tightly in the cloth of Finn's shirt. Then he blinked.

"Are you wearing Tanya's clothes?"

Finn looked down at his own chest. "I didn't have anything clean. She said it looks good on me."

"You're wearing a purple t-shirt. It has cleavage."

Finn's look turned pouting. "Would you like it better if I had boobs?"

"God, no," he said fervently. "You're a guy. Just be a guy."

"Ooo," Finn crooned in a teasing voice—and Caleb nearly passed out from relief that Finn could still dredge up the old jokes he'd seemed to enjoy so much. It was only just now coming to him the amount of freedom Finn had allowed himself around Caleb. No one else. Just him. "Does Big Daddy think I'm handsome?"

"No," Caleb said with conviction.

"Oh."

"You're not handsome, that's a fucking stupid word anyway. You're just . . ."

"What?"

"I don't know, beautiful, I guess," he muttered.

Finn's eyes flew wide. "R-really?" he stuttered out laughingly.

"Don't you dare act like a dumbass about this, because I'm never gonna say it again, you got that?"

Finn stared at him. "Dear God, you're serious."

"When did I ever say anything I didn't mean?" he demanded.

"You just said I was beautiful."

"Well, you're not handsome, but you're something, aren't you?"

"I don't know, am I?" Finn asked in bewilderment.

"This is a stupid conversation. And you talk too much, anyway. I don't want to talk. My arm and my ribs feel like goddamn divine retribution or something. I want to lay down. And since you probably haven't slept in the past week, you're going to lay down, too."

"Actually . . . Tanya's pretty good at making me sleep."

"That doesn't surprise me, but I don't care. I want to sleep."

Finn stared at him. "Are you trying to say that you can't sleep without me?"

Caleb felt himself blushing. So he smacked Finn in the face with a pillow. "I'm saying I'm fucking tired and my arm hurts, so shut the hell up already." He yanked the pillow back and frowned, trying to figure out how to lie down without hurting himself. He suddenly saw why Finn had been sleeping on the couch back then. Without a remote-controlled bed and a bunch of interfering nurses, his broken bones suddenly seemed like a much bigger problem.

"Here," Finn said, a smile creeping onto his face—the asshole. He knew what Caleb was thinking about, and he was just going to be nice about it, instead of rubbing it in that Caleb had been a jerk about it to him. He scooted backward, then laid down with his head propped up on the pillows. He held up his hands. "Just lean back. I've got you."

Caleb held his breath while Finn lowered him backward to lay beside him. He released it with a moan when he was finally down, pressing his hand over his side. In the future, he was going to avoid things like poking holes in his lung.

"I'm sorry, Caleb," Finn whispered. His breath tickled in Caleb's hair. It made him shiver, and that made him wince and clutch even harder at his ribs. "Oh, god, I'm sorry."

"If you ever apologize again, I'm going to break your nose," Caleb growled, trying to get comfortable. It was more than just a little weird to be the one being held instead of the one doing the holding. But it was probably good for Finn, and Caleb needed something to lay on so he didn't roll over on his injuries.

Finn laughed, and the vibration in his chest resonated against Caleb's side as he turned to rest against him. He suppressed another shiver. "Tanya said you'd say that."

"You're getting awfully close to Tanya, aren't you?"

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Yes," he muttered, closing his eyes and burying his face in the objectionable purple shirt. "You're going to make my life hell forever."

"Mmm," was Finn's sleepy response. Hah. He knew Finn was tired. "Forever?"

"You going somewhere?"

"No."

"Good. I'm not, either."

"I know. Shh. Sleep."

"S'what I said. Dumbass . . ."

"Well, that is just nauseating," Yvonne pronounced as she closed the door.

"Yes, it is," Susan agreed.

"It's adorable," Tanya objected.

"Should we wake them up? They've been asleep for hours," Lee spoke up.

"Let them sleep," Yvonne said. "I'd rather have this conversation while Caleb is unconscious and unable to harm me."

It was noted that no one believed Caleb was too incapacitated to cause harm. Although it was hard to believe he was capable of violence when he was all cuddled up in Finn's arms like that.

"Are you here to tell us we're evicted?" Lee asked nervously.

Yvonne smiled at him. "Actually, I came by to tell you that you aren't."

"Oh. Huh?"

"You see, this man Arthur Ortega called the office a few weeks ago. He was trying to get information about you boys. Molly knew something was fishy, so she gave him over to me. I didn't know exactly who he was, but I could tell he was trying to make trouble for Finn. So I took down all the pertinent information and informed him that I was taking out a restraining order on him. He was served with the papers, it's on record. He knew that it was illegal for him to set foot on my property."

"Well," Susan said. "That is helpful. Thank you."

"I thought any little bit would help your case."

"Indeed," Amy mused.

"But why didn't you say anything before?" Lee blurted out.

"I assumed that if Finn had wanted me to know about his connection to Mr. Ortega, he'd have mentioned him to me," Yvonne said smoothly, one eyebrow going high.

It was a reasonable explanation, and the fact that she'd gone out of her way to come here and help them was really nice. But this wasn't the first time she'd known too much and kept it to herself. It left Lee wondering something disturbing. What else did Yvonne know?