Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Dr. Tanner quickly stepped in. “What does the building look like, Michael? Do you see your uncle?”
“Santori,” he said. “That’s not my dad’s name. Not my name.”
“What is your name?” she prompted.
“I don’t know. But that’s what my dad said. Our name is not Santori. My uncle is Santori. Mister Santori to you. Get your urchins upstairs to the bath before someone calls social services.”
He seemed to be spouting off random quotes from his memory, all in his own voice, and I marveled at how strong that memory must be in his head to allow him to just fall right into it like that. I could hardly remember anything I’d said last week, and here Kage was reciting stuff from seventeen years before.
“Do you like Mr. Santori?” Dr. Tanner asked.
“He’s got ice cream,” he said. “There’s pistachio ice cream in the kitchen, and if you’re a good boy and do what I say, you can have some. We don’t get ice cream very often, and pistachio is my favorite. I hope it comes on a cone.”
It was eerie how Kage kept saying Santori’s lines.
“Did you get the ice cream?” Dr. Tanner asked.
“Not yet. I ask him sometimes, but he keeps forgetting. He’s a busy man with a hotel to run.”
“What does your father do at the hotel?”
“He keeps losing his ass. They’re gonna cut him off. He wouldn’t know luck if it hit him upside the head. He doesn’t have the Santori blood. If he had the Santori blood, he could win.”
I hung my head, hurting inside for the little kid who had to hear all of that nonsense. Santori could crush the soul of a grown man. I couldn’t even imagine how intimidating he must have been to a seven-year-old boy.
“Let’s remember to not feel, Michael,” Dr. Tanner said. “We’re only seeing and reporting. It’s not necessary to feel.”
Kage nodded, still keeping his eyes closed. I had to hand it to the therapist. She was doing a good job of keeping him calm, even when he was exploring painful memories that he may have kept buried for years.
“Do you remember playing with Evan at the Alcazar?” Dr. Tanner tried to keep her voice steady, but I could hear the slight change in it. I worried that Kage would notice and shut down on us.
“Yeah, I remember. We had fun. We could run up and down the halls as long as we didn’t get caught. We could play in the stairwells. My dad won at cards one time, and he brought us these big plastic dump trucks. There wasn’t any sand, but we would let them go down the stairs.” He laughed, and Dr. Tanner reminded him again about not feeling.
I wished she could make me not feel, because as Kage described the way he and his brothers used to play on the stairs, my stomach began to knot up to the point of pain. To have a forgotten story of tragedy unfolding right before me terrified me in a way that nearly surpassed having the life choked out of me. If things got much more intense, and I had a feeling they would, I was afraid I might throw up.
“Did anything happen on the stairs, Michael?”
I sucked in a sharp breath at her bold question, and she shot me a glare— a wordless admonition to shut the hell up before I ruined everything.
“My truck broke,” Kage said. “Evan threw his down and broke it, too, so we would both have broken trucks. There wasn’t any sand, anyway.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. God, why did we have to listen to this? Why did this have to be Kage’s life? I was already freaking out, and we hadn’t even gotten to the part where his brother died. Jesus Christ, I did not want to hear that. But I had no choice. Kage was mine now, and this was part of what shaped him and haunted him. If I wanted him— and I did, so much— then I would have to take all of this, too. I’d known almost from the start that he needed someone to help shoulder his burden, and I also knew that I was the one he’d chosen for the job. But in my inexperience, I hadn’t been capable of imagining how real that burden might be. Now I was getting a crash course.
On the bed, Kage smiled at nothing, still keeping his eyes closed. It was comforting to know that inside his head, he was getting to relive a little of the joy he’d experienced before his brother died.
“No feelings this time, Michael,” Dr. Tanner reminded. “We can do that another time. Right now, we’re only seeing.”
The smile faded from Kage’s face.
Dr. Tanner took a deep, steadying breath before proceeding. “Do you remember the last time you saw Evan?”