The Helford Trials (Helford #3)

Chapter Eleven

                 

Meade found me at the Tower of London, standing over the Traitor's Gate. He had the strangest smile on his face as he joined me, leaning into the railing.

"I met Caitie here," he said. "Months ago, now. Are you alright?"

"I don't think so," I replied, feeling a little like I was standing on the deck of a boat, letting the current toss me around like a rag doll. Not even the current of the Thames, strong and steady right before, could reassure me.

Meade nodded slowly, like he understood, and maybe he did. Meade must have had to see his brother in a hundred different disguises, but it was always his brother underneath of it all. Rian, when he was dead, wasn't coming back, and everyone knew that. Meade didn't have to live years mourning him, years looking back and asking what he could have done to make things different, only to suddenly have him show up in the middle of a trial of the most dangerous killers Helford ever manufactured, not recognizing me or my father, talking about how Helford had planned for him to be a weapon all along.

I both pitied Meade and envied him for that. At least he could live with the reassurance that the dead stay dead, and I would keep constantly looking over my shoulder, always getting proved wrong in the worst ways.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. It was just too much.

"Whoa, hey, enough of that," Meade said, a dash of panicked as my breathing started shifting toward hyperventilation. "There's no need for that, yeah? Just breathe. There are worse things."

I let out a distressed whine.

"Okay, yeah, bad thing to say, I know. You still alive?"

"I feel sick," I whispered, closing my eyes. The waves were even louder that way. "Am I overreacting? Would you react like this if it was . . .?"

"Hell yeah," Meade replied easily. "I'd probably be worse. So far, you haven't vomited, so that's a good thing."

Meade wasn't necessarily my first choice in a personal cheerleader, but his demeanor was good enough to help me center myself. Meade wasn't used to having to console people, either that or he wasn't used to being the person people went to when they needed consoling, but I could see what he was, however awkwardly, trying to convey to me. I saw the concern on his face, his eyes pinched tight in the corners. Meade and I might have started off our alliance strongly disliking each other, but now it was almost a surprise to realize that we were friends more than we were simply allies. I trusted him in a way I hadn't before, and I liked to think that he at least tolerated me, to come after me like this.

Once the truth hit the courtroom, after a moment of silence where the whole world seemed to stand still, it erupted into chaos. Valerie's gasp sounded to me the loudest, but maybe that was because she was next to me, and everything was starting to feel like it was happening through water, everything numb. Meade spun in his seat to look at me, eyes wide and comically shocked, looking more honest than he had almost ever. From the front of the room, Milton, who had been holding a file of papers, had dropped it, sending dozens of white sheets flying. My father was frozen like stone, sustaining the hit like I was. As if in third person in my own mind, I noticed Matthew turning slowly in his seat to observe the chaos, looking morbidly curious as to why it might have meant so much.

But I couldn't feel it. Valerie was saying something to me, mouth moving quickly and eyes frantic, and Meade's hand was pressing hard on my shoulder, but I didn't feel or hear or see any of it, not for a long moment. It happened slowly, like my own mind was refusing to process it that final step. And then it hit me, and all I could hear was the sound of rapid gunshots, the blurry image a woman I now knew as Naomi Addams standing before my family with a gun raised, the sound of my father's screams cutting through the sound of the street.