Part 25 (1/2)

Nina held up a finger before putting it against her pursed lips. ”Shut up. Shut up now. Who is Penny, Phoebe?”

And there it was. There was no way to avoid it. So she just said it. ”My sister. Your sister, too, if you want to be technical.”

Wanda pretended to cough to cover her gasp, and then she muttered a warning growl. ”Nina ...”

Instead of going for Phoebe's throat, Nina put her hands behind her and felt for the edge of Sam's bed, sitting down. ”Say it. Tell me f.u.c.king all of it. Do it without whining and carrying on, or I swear to you, Phoebe, I'm going to smash your face in.”

Phoebe instantly backed down. This Nina. The one who spoke words that were relatively calm, and succinctly enunciated wasn't the openly angry Nina. The one who made threats that were, for the most part, just empty threats. She had no doubt Nina could do some damage, but she'd never follow through on one of her I'll-pull-your-d.i.c.k-through-your-belly-b.u.t.ton war cries unless she absolutely had to.

But this Nina? The one who hadn't called her Fill in the Blank Barbie but Phoebe, wasn't the Nina who yelled and carried on at a very predictable level of ire. This was a bone-chilling Nina.

She was also a Nina whose world had been turned upside down-a Nina that was feeling the true sting of betrayal by the father she'd so loved. Huge chunks of her life were now accounted for in a much different way than she'd thought, and it had defeated her. Sadly, Phoebe read it. In her words. In her actions.

And for the first time since she'd met her sister-Phoebe hurt for her. She hurt for the Nina who'd been kidney punched by one secret after the other.

Sitting on the edge of the bed near Nina, Phoebe put her hand on her sister's stiff arm and began. ”Penny is twenty years old. She was late in life for my mother and our father. A total surprise, but not one that wasn't a happy one, if you heard Mom and Dad talk about it. She was conceived just before Dad died. He knew about her, but he never had the chance to meet her.”

”So one less secret he didn't have to keep, right?” Nina sneered, though it was a weak attempt at hiding her sadness.

Phoebe's response was quiet, measured. ”My mother didn't know about you for a long time, Nina. Not until just before Dad died, according to her. When he told her, she wanted to incorporate you into our lives, and I know she would have loved you just the same way she loved Penny and me. Whether you liked it or not. I think Dad was about to give in ... but then he died. I only found out about this just after my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago.”

”Your mother had it, too?” Nina choked out the words, stiffening her spine.

Phoebe's nod was tight, her eyes hot and grainy. ”She said she told me about you because she didn't want me to be alone when she ... was gone. I don't know why she never tried to find you after Dad died. I think it's because she was too busy trying to keep it together for Penny. And then Penny had a horrible accident and ...” Her voice choked on the words of that terrible moment in time.

Nina's head shot up so fast the bones in her neck cracked. ”What happened to her?”

She retold the events of that devastating day her mother had called her in a state of hysteria when Phoebe was just twenty-three.

She'd known the moment she'd heard her mother's voice, one that was rarely p.r.o.ne to raise even an octave, that something awful had happened. ”Penny needs twenty-four-seven care. Her brain injury was more than I could handle and manage work at the same time after my mother pa.s.sed. Without help, without someone to take her for her physical therapy and all of the things required to care for her, I decided to use the insurance money my mother left me and the money I made from the sale of our old house to put Penny somewhere where she would be cared for properly until I could hire someone to live in with us full-time. I did try to keep her with me. I tried so hard. Mark helped, but finding good, reliable help was almost impossible. I'd come home from work to find she hadn't moved from her wheelchair all day-”

”She's in a wheelchair?” Nina asked, her voice unusually thin and shaken.

Wanda moved to sit near her friend, pulling Nina's hand to her lap, silent tears streaming down her face, catching the streetlights from the window.

Phoebe's stomach tightened at the question. Whether it was really there or not, she still felt the bitter ache in her gut when it came to Penny's condition. ”She is-one she's so self-conscious about around other people her age, it makes me want to lay down and die. She wants to be like everyone else, is all. And who at ten doesn't? She also has the mental capacity of a ten-year-old, and she always will. It's the brain damage. But she's the sweetest thing in the whole wide world, and my heart. She's trusting and loving and-and-if-” Her words broke again. She squeezed her eyes shut to relieve the grainy pulse of them.

Nina's eyes, penetrating Phoebe's right through the skin of her eyelids, forced her to open hers. She took Phoebe's chin in her hand. ”Who f.u.c.king did this to her?”

Phoebe bit the inside of her cheek. A regret she'd always live with. If living was what she was doing when this was all over. ”We never found out.”

Nina's fists clenched. ”The f.u.c.k better hope I never get my hands on him.” She paused, then closed her eyes and rolled her head on her neck before she spoke again. ”And you didn't tell me about this, why, Phoebe? Forget all the other bulls.h.i.+t about how angry I was about finding out about you and give me the real reason.”

Sorrow burrowed deep in her soul. ”Wasn't I enough, Nina? It wasn't bad enough that you knew nothing about me-add in my Alzheimer's and ice that cake with Penny? As difficult as you are, even I didn't think that was fair to you. But once I saw your reaction to me, I didn't want Penny to be shunned, too. There really was no point to telling you about her. I figured once this was over, we'd part ways and it would be done with you never the wiser.”

Nina's eyes narrowed. ”You better not have done this because you're ashamed of her-or I'll kick your a.s.s, Phoebe.”

How odd that she'd thought Nina would be insensitive to Penny, but also that Nina thought she hid Penny away in shame. ”No! No. It's nothing like that. People can be very cruel. I've experienced it firsthand and so has Penny. She might be disabled, but she still understands when people stare at her or make rude remarks. She's not deaf. Just disabled. Sometimes when I take her out for the day, kids ... They just don't understand-some people just haven't taught their children about differences. But I hurt for her. So much that I want to beat all the mean kids up at the park-which is ridiculous. I'm the adult.”

”I'm fully in control of myself at all times, and I'd want to do the same, Phoebe,” Wanda offered, her eyes warm and sympathetic.

Nina flashed a hand between them. ”And the a.s.sholes from this clinical trial know about Penny how? I thought they thought you had no family?”

Her hands twisted in her lap. Because she'd done something foolhardy in her surge of I am vampire, no one f.u.c.ks with me. This was all her fault. ”Sam said it's because they have my phone. The hospital's in my list of contacts. I never, ever listed her on any of the medical forms I've filled out-which is probably why they didn't think I had any living relatives. But she's there ...”

Nina nodded, but her teeth were clenched. ”f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.kerly, f.u.c.k.”

”Sam said he has someone looking out for both her and Mark. I don't know who, and I didn't ask questions. But I trust that he's done what he said.” Even if she wasn't so sure she trusted anything else about him.

”I won't feel better until I know she's safe,” Nina spat. ”End of.”

Phoebe let her eyes fall to the floor. ”Anyway. I'm really sorry. She's all I've got. There's nothing I wouldn't do for her. Nothing. I just wanted to protect her.”

”From big, bad me,” Nina seethed, some of that familiar anger seeping back in the way of apparent self-recrimination.

”Oh, Nina,” Wanda said with watery tones, wrapping her arm around her friend's shoulder and giving it a squeeze so hard Nina bucked forward. ”While I don't condone Phoebe not telling you, talking to you isn't exactly like sitting down at a Gandhi-Oprah hosted tea party, sweet face. It's more like taking a meeting with Ted Bundy. So don't pull the martyr stuff, miss. I call foul.”

Nina flipped her the bird, but she followed it with a smile. ”Fair enough, but f.u.c.k you anyway, Wanda.”

Wanda chuckled, reaching over to squeeze Phoebe's hand. ”You've had a lot on your plate, Phoebe, but no more secrets. Got that? Auntie Wanda's not terribly fond of surprises, okay? We can't protect what we don't know is ours.”

That Wanda had used the word ours made Phoebe's eyes sting. For the first time since her mother died, she didn't feel as alone in the world. ”That's all of it. I swear.” The tight knot in her chest began to subside.

Nina nodded with a firm shake of her head. ”So, after the commotion in here, and the phone call from Siberia telling me to ask you two to keep it the f.u.c.k down, obviously Sammy told you about his s.h.i.+t.”

Phoebe looked down at her hands in her lap. ”Too much?”

Nina laughed with a hoa.r.s.e snicker. ”Even I let him explain, Melodramatic Barbie. Christ.”

Her chin fell to her chest, her head shaking from side to side. ”I said f.u.c.k you to him.” And now she regretted it.

Nina snorted and clapped her on the back. ”Yeah, I heard, bada.s.s. Honest to s.h.i.+t, I just don't get how we can be related,” she remarked, her tone dry.

”What?”

”You swear like a sissy-la-la. Jesus. Work on that. I can't let anyone know you're my sister till you get that s.h.i.+t worked out.”

Phoebe tamped down her excitement at Nina's use of the word sister. ”Well, you are legend. Promise I'll work harder to live up to your legacy. Either way, I was just so angry with him for lying. And even if it was to protect us, it was a serious thing to keep from us.”

Nina slapped Phoebe's thigh. ”Agreed. On all counts. But then, you're just as guilty, Clandestine Barbie.”

Wanda chuckled at Phoebe's silence.

”But don't think for one of your girlie seconds I didn't tell him as much either. Because I did. While he was pressed up against a wall and my fist was all up in his good-looking, I'm-so-innocent face.”

Oh, she totally got that. ”When it hit me that all that cute, Care Bear cuddly he throws around like it's free for the taking was just an act, I felt like I'd slept with a stranger. I know we haven't known each other long, but what attracted me to him was how sort of corny he was. I went into it with the hot nerd and came out with a cranky FBI agent. Now I just feel dirty.”

Nina clucked her tongue in response. ”You should, for all the screaming you two do in here.”

Her cheeks would stain bright red right now if she were still human. ”Is nothing sacred with you people?”