“Got it.”
Chloe hung up, and Ben walked back to the garden where Beatrice and Sadia were swimming in the heated pool.
“Do it again, Mama!” Sadia’s laughter flew through the air.
“Okay, hold your arms out.”
Ben sat on a chaise and watched Beatrice lift her daughter into the air, raising a column of water under Sadia’s arms and legs as the little girl laughed and wiggled.
“It tickles!”
“High enough?”
“Higher!”
“Just a little bit.” Beatrice’s face was glowing. “One, two, three… Dive!”
In an instant, Sadia pointed her arms over her head and puffed her cheeks out to hold her breath. The column fell back into the pool, softening Sadia’s landing. The little girl flipped head over heels before she swam under the water like a fish, heading toward the shallow end.
“She’s a good swimmer,” Ben said.
“She is.” Beatrice sat on the steps of the pool as Sadia surfaced. “Did you hear Ben? He was complimenting you on your swimming.”
Sadia’s smile was huge. “I can swim all the way across the pool. Want to see?”
“Yes.”
She immediately flung herself into an enthusiastic crawl, her arms wheeling and her legs kicking as she moved through the water.
“Is she on the swim team?”
“Not yet.” Beatrice leaned against the edge, her hair piled on top of her head in a bun. “Dema and Zain would be the ones to enroll her if she wanted to do it. Right now we’re still keeping close to home or school.”
Sadia attended the discreet and very private school that Ben had also attended as a child. It was run by and for the day people of immortal clans. All the children knew about vampires, and none of them had to hide their unusual families or parents’ jobs from unknowing classmates.
“When do you think she’ll be ready to hide things?”
Beatrice snorted. “Never? I’ve never met a blunter child.”
“Not even me?”
“You?” Beatrice looked at him from the side of her eyes while she kept her focus on Sadia. “You were the opposite of blunt. You were the most politic teenager ever. You wanted to make everyone happy and get your way at the same time.”
“Isn’t that everyone?”
“Maybe.” Beatrice narrowed her eyes. “But you weren’t manipulative. You never did anything you thought would hurt people. You just… tried to cheerfully arrange the people in your life so you got the exact outcome you wanted.”
Ben frowned. But wasn’t that how everyone worked?
“Don’t get me wrong, you were a great kid. But more than once, I caught you doing something, started to object, then realized you’d actually gotten me to give you permission in some tricky way.”
Ben smiled. “I did get away with a lot.”
“And your uncle didn’t help. He treated you like a miniature adult. Tenzin—” She broke off and clapped for Sadia when she surfaced at the end of the pool. “Good job, Sadia!”
The little girl panted. “Okay, I’m coming back now.”
“Then we need to go read before bed.”
The little girl gave a pained expression. “Nooooo.”
“Yes.”
Sadia looked at Ben.
He shook his head. “Don’t look at me, kid. I can’t overrule her.”
Sadia whispered loudly, “But you can fly me away and hide me.”
Ben chuckled. “Tomorrow night.”
She perked up. “Promise?”
Beatrice shrugged when Ben looked at her. “It won’t be the first time she’s flown.”
“Because Tenzin flies me!” Sadia flung herself back into the pool.
“What were you going to say?” Ben asked. “About her?”
Beatrice looked at him, then looked away. “Just that…” Her voice was flat. “She never seemed to realize you also weren’t an adult. She never treated you like a child.”
Mentally, Ben couldn’t help but think: Since we’ve had sex, it would be super weird if she had. Definitely, majorly weird. “To be fair, I wasn’t exactly a normal sixteen-year-old.”
He’d killed for the first time when he’d been sixteen. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone die, but was the first time he’d killed someone.
“I know you weren’t,” Beatrice said. “But I tried to give you something approaching a normal childhood.” She reached for Sadia and lifted the little girl out of the pool. “Is she a girl or a fish?” She turned her back and forth, pretending to check her neck. “Ben, do you see any gills?”
“I think she hides them.” He walked over and pushed Sadia’s dripping hair out of the way. “Where are they, Sadi?”
Sadia laughed. “I don’t have gills.”
“I don’t know…”
She scrambled out of Beatrice’s arms and ran toward the chairs.
“No running,” Ben and Beatrice said at the same time.
“I’m not.” She slowed to a very fast walk. “I’m walking fast.”
“Okay, well fast-walk into your towel and then into the house please.”
“Okaaaay.” Sadia disappeared under a blue shark-shaped towel before she fast-walked into the house.
Ben turned to Beatrice. “She’s so great.”
His aunt smiled. “We were worried about attachment issues with her, but she’s such a survivor. Stubborn as a little mule sometimes, but that’s just who she is.”
“She’s great.” Ben watched Beatrice. “Giovanni said you’re not talking to her.”
“To Sadi— Oh.” Beatrice shook her head. “To her. No.”
“When she visits—”
“I’m not going to fight with him,” she said. “They’ve been friends for too long, and Sadia adores her. But I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to hang around.” She stood and Ben watched in mild fascination as she shook and the water fled from her skin. No towel. No drips. “I usually go to Dez’s house when she comes.”
“Does she visit a lot?”
Beatrice shrugged. “A few times over the past couple of years.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Why?”
“For the baby. Sadia loves her, and she asks…” Beatrice wrapped a deep blue robe around herself. “Giovanni says she’s different.”
“Different how?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? She’s like five thousand years old, Ben. Do you really think anyone that old can change?”
“I don’t know.”
“I doubt it.” Beatrice walked toward the house. “I highly doubt it.”
6
Ben was sleeping when Chloe arrived the next day. He woke and heard her cheerful voice in the kitchen, chatting with Dema, Sadia, and Zain.
“And then at school I have three friends.”
“Only three?”
“I play with everyone.” Sadia’s voice was cautious. “But friends are different.”