Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain

Chapter 122 - The start of beginning a 'New Start'

Chapter 122

Valkyrie's first thoughts when she woke up was that she was far too hot and was also very thirsty. The second's ones were just a barrage of last night and all the crazy things she'd been told. Carefully, she extracted herself from under Nadia and took a drink from the plastic cup from the side – had she not been allowed glass? – kicked the covers off of them and lay back down to think.

She'd just been told so much. It was scary to think that so many big things had happened while she was... away? Gone? Sick? She wasn't sure about the words, but it was hard to believe so much had changed. Tanith and Ghastly, Solomon being rescued, Nadia saving him all alone, her family cutting Nadia off so rudely. Nadia had been able to tell her a lot of truth, but Valkyrie was a detective, and even if he was on her Shit List of people she wanted to scream at right about now, Skulduggery had taught her that there were two sides to every story.

Tanith must have been tired and certainly ill so there was a little bit of an alibi to leaving Nadia alone, and it did seem as if she put in some effort when Nadia was right in front of her, but her brothers didn't have that defence. She supposed they had been looking for Skulduggery but again, it was not a full-time thing that stopped them from checking in on Nadia. Single texts here and there would have sufficed.

Perhaps I'm prematurely overreacting, she thought to herself. She needed the full story, but she was also being protective of Nadia because she could see how badly this had affected her. And even with all that jumbling around in her head, she knew Nadia hadn't told her everything and she needed to get those details still.

She needed time. Time to think and plan and act. She had to prioritise. When she and Nadia had first broken up, she'd spent a lot of time with Corrival while she was getting over immediate emotions and they had mostly spoken about military tactics and the sort of priorities she had to hold during battle and even just in the Sanctuary doing paperwork.

Well, she knew she needed information. The first thing that came to mind, admittedly, was Skulduggery. She had to speak with him about a massive number of things, but with him being quiet, and her being so angry, she didn't particularly want to get involved with that at the moment. As well as that, there were the Spiders, and she bet he knew a bunch about that if she could put that anger to one side. So Skulduggery was a big one for a few things, but there were other things she could do the emotions were too raw to actually do it.

She needed to talk to Tanith. Honestly, she wasn't mad with Tanith. Her sister was in a really bad situation, even if she was being strong about it. She was having a baby, the father was being an idiot, and all the other things like Valkyrie being sick, Skulduggery and all of that couldn't be helping. Plus, she was already getting sick from the pregnancy, so Valkyrie doubted that was much better with stress added on top. The only thing she needed to do with Tanith was kindly ask what was happening and try to help her. Sure, she wanted to be mad that Tanith hadn't been there for Nadia, but even Nadia had said how worried Tanith had been, how much she had risked in her pregnancy and health to be at the hospital for Valkyrie. There was no point in making it worse.

As for Ghastly, he was also on the Shit List, but in a way that made her side firmly with Tanith and make her want to ignore him. She'd get around to the shouting later.

Now, her brothers? That was something else. They truly had ignored Nadia, even when they were at the hospital together when she'd been 'awake'. They hadn't been busy searching, they had unified in their want to help Valkyrie. And in their refusal to talk to Nadia. That was not okay and she would find out what was going on there.

Obviously, Nadia was on the list of priorities too, because there was a lot to talk about and help her with but getting everything around them calm would probably help the most. She also had to thank Fletcher, and probably Myra, for helping Nadia. In fact, she wouldn't mind thinking of something to thank Nadia with too, since she'd helped her so much.