Downworld

Chapter 36

The doctors kept me there the three days it took for my legs to fix themselves, taking constant x-rays -- so much that I'm pretty sure a regular person would have had radiation poisoning or something by the end -- and asking me questions. Isamu texted, sending me news articles. I was infamous, as was Criswell's attack on Fiona. If the feds wanted to disappear me, they weren't game to do it with the world watching.

They did help me get out of the hospital without being groped by reporters, though I'm sure they did it for their own sake -- best to keep me from giving interviews before they'd decided how the government was going to handle this.

By the time I returned to the Glen, it was night in the above. Even so, I didn't really expect Malik to actually be asleep. One, he didn't need that much sleep, and two, I was pretty sure he would had been worried about me. Not that I'd wanted him to stay awake for three days waiting for me, I was just surprised that he didn't. But there he was, curled up on his side of the bed, snoring.

That left me in a little bit of a quandary. I too wanted to get some sleep, but I was one hundred percent sure he was going to be pissed at me when he woke up, which meant when he woke up, then I would be waking up too. I briefly, and not very seriously, considered finding somewhere else to sleep.

At the sound of the door opening, I looked up to see Kip standing there. Which was fine, he could stand there all he wanted if it meant he was going to protect me from Tinder when she heard that I was back. He wouldn't protect me from Malik, but Tinder was probably going to be the more dangerous of the two anyway.

'He took a sedative,' Kip said by way of opening, gesturing at Malik. 'Enough to knock out an elephant, so he should be out for a couple hours more.'

I was impressed that Kip knew what an elephant even was. 'Why would he do that?'

'Why? Maybe because he was so frantic about you that he was one twitch away from burning this place to the ground.'

I did my best not to flinch. 'Shit.'

'Yeah,' Kip agreed. 'Good thing for you his dad was the same way whenever Malik got in trouble, and I had some tranqs around. Next time give him a heads up, all right?'

Not likely there would be another time I needed to get hit by a car, but whatever. 'Okay. Thanks.'

'No problem. I actually came here for something else though.'

'You need something?'

'I want you to tell him... explain, you know. Why I left.'

I blinked at him. 'You're leaving?'

'Yes. I'm going to live with my son, above. I expect I won't be coming back down. I figure with everything that's happening, now's the right time.'

'I didn't know you had a son.' Let alone a son that was living above. In fact, I knew very little about Kip at all, he played her personal life close to the chest.

'He takes after his mother. He's having a kid, and I think he mostly just wants me around so he can make sure the baby stays safe. But I haven't got much longer to live... and Malik doesn't need me so much anymore.' He shrugged, but he didn't need to explain, I got it.

'Do you need--'

'No. I'll get by. You've done enough.'

I got up and went over to him so I could shake his hand, then he left. I watched him walk down the hallway -- it was just a hallway I know, but he didn't look back, and neither did he square his shoulders like he was trying not to.