The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 535

Chapter 535: 535 | A Work of Fiction [CASTLE BONUS]

Not to blue this time. To off-white ceiling tile and soft medical lighting turned down to nighttime dim, and the green pulse of a monitor to my left keeping honest time with my own heartbeat.

And to two hands wrapped around my right one, holding it the way you hold something you’ve decided not to let go of regardless of what the situation thinks about that.

Diane.

She was leaning forward in a chair pulled tight to the bed, her pink hair loose and un-styled in a way I had seen exactly twice in nine years, both times in the kitchen at home with the armor off. No blazer. A silk camisole gone soft with wear, sleeves pushed up. Her cold blue eyes were fixed on my hand, not my face, like she’d been watching for movement in my fingers instead of my eyelids and hadn’t caught up yet.

She looked tired. Diane Fitzgerald did not look tired. It was against her entire operating philosophy. She managed exhaustion the way she managed everything, out of sight, behind the presentation, and the fact that it had leaked through to the surface told me more about the last however-many hours than any headcount could.

I opened my mouth. What came out was a croak, dry and useless, the vocal equivalent of a car turning over in the cold.

Her eyes snapped up.

For one second she didn’t move. Just looked at me, the whole of her attention, the Read the Room Aspect she’d built an empire on burning through whatever performance I might have tried to put up and finding nothing but a boy who hurt everywhere and was extremely glad to be looking at her. Whatever she saw made the tension go out of her shoulders in a single long exhale I felt more than heard.

"There he is," she said, low and Charleston-slow, and her thumb pressed once against the back of my hand. "Welcome back, sugar."

"Water," I managed.

She was already reaching for it. Held the straw to my mouth, tilted the cup, and I drank in small pulls while my throat came back online. She didn’t rush me. Didn’t fuss. Just held the cup steady with the same competent patience she’d probably applied to keeping herself from falling apart for a day and a half.

"How long," I said, when the straw came away.

"Twenty-nine hours." She set the cup down. "Give or take. Long enough that I’ve had opinions about the machine soup at the end of the hall, and long enough that I’ve turned my phone off, which I want you to appreciate, because Margot Lang has called it eleven times and I have not answered once."

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify