Soviet Bloc. The best moments of his grim childhood had been seeing the professional cyclists in their brightly colored kits go whizzing through his town, training for the Tour de France. When Alex had escaped to America as a teen, he’d been shocked that his new schoolmates didn’t know any pro cyclists by name.
“I can ride a two-wheeler,” Justin said.
“Yeah? That’s great.” Alex started palpating the child’s good leg, picking up the diminutive foot in his hand and rotating it to test the ankle. “Do you have a favorite movie?”
The kid lit up like a lightbulb. “I like Star Wars. Do you know that one? And I like Guardians of the Galaxy. And I like Space Maze.”
“I’m going to bend your knee now.” Alex wanted to keep Justin focused on something else. “Who’s your favorite character out of the whole Maze world?”
“I like Eva. You know, Princess Picasso.”
Dad snorted again. “A princess? Goya the Destroya, that was the best guy in the movie.”
“But Dad, Goya was a bad guy. Eva was the good guy.” Justin looked ready to cry, and Alex didn’t think it was because his leg hurt him.
“So what? Goya kicked azzz...uh, butt.”
Justin showed a little spark of defiance. “Eva had a cool laser gun. She kept it hidden in her boot.”
Good for you, kid. You’re going to need that stubbornness with a father like yours.
Alex had liked the Eva Picasso character, too. “She was really brave. She saved her people from the maze. I’m going to need you to be really brave for a minute. I’m going to move your knee as far as it will go.” It was a matter of millimeters before Justin responded in pain and Alex stopped. He patted the kid on his good leg. “Do you remember what the princess kept in her other boot?”
Justin’s grimace relaxed a bit. “Yeah, that really cool knife that could cut right through anything. Even metal.”
“You’re talking ’bout the chick who wore the boots?” His father sat back, sounding relieved. “She was hot. Sophia Jackson, that’s the one. Okay, yeah, the boots chick was hot.”
“And brave,” Justin said.
“And brave,” Alex agreed as he stood up. “I don’t think the bone in your leg is broken, but I need to get an X-ray to be sure. It won’t hurt. An X-ray is a special kind of camera.”
“I know,” Justin said. “It can take a picture right through your clothes. Princess Picasso could get one with her boots on.”
Dear old Dad couldn’t help himself. “I bet the doc would love to get a picture of Sophia Jackson right through her clothes. Who wouldn’t? Am I right?”
Alex didn’t reply. What he’d like to see was Princess Picasso giving this Neanderthal one of her go-to-hell looks.
A brave princess in his ER?
That would make his day.
Grace was a coward. She darted a glance around the van, petrified of getting caught.
Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. All eyes are on Sophia, anyway.
Grace pulled her sister’s phone out of her bag. What she was about to do was for Sophia’s own good. When the lock screen lit up, she tapped in the four-digit access code.
It was rejected.
The code was supposed to be the year Grace had been born. Although it surprised the few people who learned of it, Grace was actually the baby sister, only twenty-five to Sophia’s twenty-nine. Her big sister loved her. Her big sister used baby Grace’s birth year as her code. Only it didn’t work now.
How old was Deezee? Grace typed in his birth year. It worked.
The stab to her heart was starting to feel too familiar. With jaw clenched, Grace began deleting photos, horrible shots of her sister’s bare breasts covered by Deezee’s hands, shots that would never, ever end up on Instagram, not when she could prevent it.
Delete, delete, delete.
The van doors opened with a sudden rush of air. Grace dropped her sister’s phone like a hot potato.
A woman about her own age poked her head in. “Hi. You’re with Sophia Jackson, right?”
“Yes.” She blinked in what she hoped was an innocent way.
“There’s been an accident.”
For one horrible moment, the world stopped.
An accident. Careers and reputations and idiot boyfriends evaporated before the image of a hurt Sophia.
“Oh, my God.” The words were a whisper, but inside her head she was screaming. My sister, my sister! Their parents had been killed in a car accident. A stranger, a woman like this one, had come just this kindly to tell them there had been an accident. Grace had been fifteen. Sophia had been nineteen.
“It’s nothing life threatening, I promise. We have so many Texas Rescue doctors and paramedics and firefighters here, she’s being well taken care of, but they do think she should go to the hospital to have things checked out.”
The only reason Grace had survived the loss of her parents was because Sophia had been by her side, taking on the role of parent, loving her with all she had. But now Sophia had been in an accident, hurt badly enough that she needed to go to the emergency room. My sister, my sister!
“Would you like to ride in the ambulance with her?”
Grace clutched her tote bag as she scrambled out of the van. The fans behind the barricade were silent, wide-eyed. The yellow ribbon had been cut. Its ends flapped in the light breeze as the ceremonial scissors leaned against the building, standing on their points, forgotten. All the men and women in suits and uniforms were now by the open doors to an ambulance. The kind woman escorted Grace right through the little cluster. A paramedic offered her a hand up, and there Sophia lay, looking miserable on a gurney. Miserable, but very much alive.
Grace threw herself onto her big sister for a hug. “Are you okay?”
Sophia put her hand on her shoulder—and gave her a shove. “Don’t bump my leg. I’m going to sue somebody if this makes me miss Deezee’s party. Give me my phone. I need to call him. He’s going to freak when he sees this on Instagram.”
Deezee was going to be worried? What about me?
While Sophia lapsed into another coughing fit, Grace sat on the metal bench that ran the length of the ambulance’s interior. She slid her tote bag closer, slowly, buying herself time to get her emotions under control. For all of her life, she’d been the one whom Sophia had worried about. After their parents had died, they’d been afraid to be apart, afraid of the future—afraid they’d lose each other in a split second, the way they’d lost their parents. Sophia had let Grace crawl into her
