Chapter 14: Say Her Name

Nessa's POV

Joanie's text reached me at midnight.

"He was here. He used the registry terminal. He left looking like someone had hit him."

I did not sleep after that.

At seven in the morning I stood in the doorway of Slade's study for the second time in three days.

Ronan waited behind me on the landing, and he kept his promise not to come in.

Slade sat behind his desk in yesterday's shirt.

A printed page lay flat under his hand.

He looked up, and for once he did not tell me to close the door.

"Nessa."

"Leave it open."

The hall behind me was filling.

The cook had come up from the kitchen, and three clerks stood in a row with their coffee untouched.

The young one with the thin mustache was at the back, very pale.

"Say her name," I said.

Slade's mouth moved.

"You told me she was one member of a pack of four hundred," I said. "You told me you didn't know her. Say her name."

"Cara."

His voice cracked on it.

"Her whole name."

"Cara Quinlan."

"What was she to you?"

He looked past me at the people in the hall.

I watched him understand that every one of them was listening.

I watched him decide not to look away.

"She was my sister."

A clerk behind me made a small choked sound.

The cook put her hand over her mouth.

"My father's daughter," Slade said. "I found out last night, from a screen, at one in the morning."

He pushed the printed page across the desk.

"I was her donor. Peyton sealed the match, and no one told me."

"Five days," I said. "I stood in this room and told you my sister was dying, and you told me to stop making a scene."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Let My Sister Die, So I Ended His Bloodline from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.