Blair turned from the bookshelves and looked around the room.
Somehow it looked just like every other place her father had built for her. Her father must have a file on her: she likes built-ins and decorative pillows. Paint an accent wall some shade of purple, even though purple hadn’t been her favorite color in thirty years.
Upstairs she could hear Teddy shifting in his bed. Slipping out of her heels, she walked toward the stairs and her feet slid along the soft white carpet. At the top landing, she paused and looked at the railing. Silver. Sometimes he remembered that she hated gold.
“NO! NO! NO!” came a sudden scream from Teddy’s room and instantly Blair was there, throwing the door open and stumbling toward his bed, walking over a collection of small blocks that cut into her feet. She scooped up the crying child in one big hug, tucked him up on to her lap, and ran her hand over his brow. She sat there rocking him back and forth. His body was warm, and his hair was matted with sweat.
“Shhhh,” Blair said. “Shhhh, shhhh. It’s okay, sweet boy. It’s okay.”
“Allison?” Teddy said through tears. His small hands clung to Blair’s neck and she could feel wetness spread across her lap. She closed her eyes tight and clutched the boy—absorbing the feel of him, the smell of his hair.
“It’s Blair, Teddy. I’m home. You’re home with me.”
Teddy moaned. “I don’t like this place. I want to go back to Uncle Ethan’s house. I want my mom.”
They had been through this before. Each time she had made empty promises and lulled him back to a place of comfort with lies. She hoped that eventually these memories would fade and his tragic life would seem dreamlike, possibly even like a lie he had told himself once upon a time. But now his dead mother had a face. And a name. Now his dead mother pined for him across the waters and waited for Blair’s promised return. Her lies had become truths against her will.
“I know, dear Teddy.”
She couldn’t remember her own mother. Not real memories, not anything that she could grasp with any sort of confidence. Snapshots fluttered across her periphery every once in a while, and she tried to convince herself that she could feel all those stories people told her, but the truth was that she never felt anything at all.
Teddy began to wail louder, and his mouth twisted into a wrecked circle. Snot dripped out of his nose and the boy wiped it away where it stayed as a thick line against his hand.
“I’m here,” Blair comforted. “I’m here, Teddy.”
Downstairs she heard a knock on her door. Not the quiet and subtle knock of a tentative nighttime visitor, but a deliberate and determined knock of someone expecting entrance. Grabbing Teddy, still wet, Blair carried him down the stairs on her hip and walked to the door, opening it with her free hand. Her father stood on the other side.
“Good,” he said. “You found your apartment. May I?” he motioned toward the living room and Blair stood back. Teddy’s whimpers had subsided, and now the boy just watched as the older man came into the house, looking around the open space and assessing each nook and cranny.
“It’s late, Dad,” Blair said. She nodded toward the child. “Teddy just had a nightmare...I need to get him to sleep.”
“I’m imposing,” Huck said. His face was flush and he had unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.
“It’s not the best time,” Blair answered. “But you can stay and I’ll be back?”
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Teddy said into Blair’s shoulder.
Huck nodded. And he sat down on the couch, clearly settling in to wait to talk to her. Annoyed, Blair trudged back upstairs and took her time. She ran a warm washcloth over Teddy and changed him into new pajamas. She picked up the blocks and put them away and stripped the sheets and laid down new blankets from her own bed, unsure if there were extra linens in one of the many closets. After singing a song while rubbing his back, Teddy drifted to sleep, still letting out intermittent cries.
Blair went back to see her father.
“So, this is not some social call?” Blair asked, sitting down across from him.
“The System plan was a failure.”
“I’ve already talked to you about this, Dad. Do we need to do it again? It’s over. Done. And I’m tired.”
“I lost men. First in Saudi Arabia and now in Nebraska. Good men.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Even if it’s not me who should be sorry. You know that, right? That it wasn’t my fault?”
“But I feel like I’m missing something...”
Blair didn’t answer. Then she saw his narrowed eyes, his stern face. She wondered, for a second, if her father knew the truth. Maybe he was baiting her into telling him more lies and then he would tell her that he knew. Hank had told. Grant had caved. Cameras caught the survivors on the plane. Her father’s attempts at control knew no bounds, and she should have guessed that he would out her as a traitor.
Unless she gave them up. Unless she spun the truth, the real truth, to her advantage.
Beat him at his own game and tell the truth, which he wasn’t expecting.
“I talked to Grant tonight,” Huck continued. “He challenged your version of the events...said that he didn’t save you. He wasn’t a hero.”
Blair paused. She took a deep breath. “Take a look at the cameras if you don’t believe me,” she said and waited.
He winked and put a hand out toward her, and she hesitated before grabbing it. When he wrapped his fingers around hers, he squeezed, too hard. She tried to pull her hand back, but he kept a tight grip, staring at her with a conniving grin. “Grant the hero,” he said.
She didn’t reply.
“Well, what I really came to say,” Huck continued, still holding on to her hand, “is that I think Teddy should stay in someone else’s care until you have recovered from the trauma of the System failure.”
“I’m not traumatized,” Blair said. She could feel her hand begin to quiver against his, her face turn hot. She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and waited.
“You still have blood on your clothes.”
“You said Teddy could stay in my care. He’s mine.” Mine. Mine. Not mine, she thought.
“It’s decided, Blair. Allison was more than helpful and she has agreed to watch Teddy for just a little while more—”
“No,” Blair said. “No!” She stood up and crossed her arms. “You know that the only thing I care about is that child.”
“I need your full focus on our plan—”
“The plan is over, Dad! This is it...we are here, on Kymberlin. There is nothing else to plan. This is the plan. Is that so hard for you? Do you always need something else to build, something else to do?”
“My control is in jeopardy. Do you understand? I need you to build support...lobby...”
“Dad,” Blair said in a steady voice. “Go to bed. Come talk to me when you’ve thought this through. You’re being...ridiculous. I have done nothing but stand by your side and support every single move you have ever made. I have loved you, feared you, worked for you for my entire life. And if you take away the one thing that I have ever asked for in return—”
“The boy does not belong to you,” Huck said simply. “He belongs to me. He is an orphan of the Islands and he is mine.”