His Dancer, His Chains novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Valve

I sat with Pippa all Wednesday night, and nothing happened.

No one came for her file or for her.

A nurse checked her pulse every two hours.

Pippa slept with her mouth open and a hospital bracelet on her thin wrist.

At six in the morning they wheeled her out.

"You look terrible," she told me from the bed.

"You look great."

"I look like a sad cartoon pigeon." She grabbed my hand. "Cora. If this goes wrong..."

"It won't."

"If it does, I want you to go back to school."

"It's not going to."

"Say it anyway."

"I'll go back to school," I said, and my voice broke on the last word.

They took her through the double doors.

I stood in the corridor and watched them close.

Someone sat down in the plastic chair next to mine.

It was Rafferty.

He had not slept either, I could tell.

He had a paper bag in one hand and two cups of coffee in the other.

"You said Thursday," he said. "I took the day."

"You can't just take a day. You're the CEO."

"I'm the one who decides what I can take."

He handed me a coffee.

I held it in both hands, and I did not drink it.

"Why are you here?"

"Because someone threatened your sister in front of me yesterday, and I don't have a better place to be."

"That's not a reason."

"It's the one I have."

We sat.

The hours went by slowly, with the light shifting on the floor.

At noon he bought me a sandwich I did not eat.

At two he took off his jacket and put it over the back of my chair, because the air-conditioning was cold.

At three the heavy door at the end of the corridor swung open.

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