“Don’t move,” I said. “I’m going to get something that will make you feel better.”

My medicinals from the bar were locked up in a drawer in Lon’s walk-in closet. I didn’t want to leave them in Tambuku while it was closed, just in case we got robbed again—whether it be Telly on a revenge mission or some other hopped-up Earthbound deciding we looked weak enough to hit. I quickly changed shirts and washed my arm in the bathroom sink, then rummaged through the vials until I found one that I used to sober up bar patrons.

When I got back to his room, he was staring at the ceiling. I went into his bathroom and filled up two disposable cups with water then set those down on his nightstand. In one, I measured two drops of the medicinal. “Here, drink this. It will make you feel better.”

He drank it down, slow at first, then faster. “I’m so thirsty,” he said, as if it was a great revelation.

“I know. Here’s more water.” I gave him the second cup and filled up two more while he drank it, setting them on his nightstand. “You’re going to want to sleep now, but when you wake up, drink more water.” I tugged off his sneakers and pulled the covers over his legs, then perched next to him on the edge of the bed.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked.

“I’m mad at your mother. What happened? I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”

He sloppily dug his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. The screen lit up. “Oh, no,” he moaned. “I had it on silent. I usually feel it.”

I took the phone away and placed it on the nightstand. “Why were you drinking? Did you use your knack to make her let you drink?”

“It was that Evan guy. Dad thinks he’s an asshole, but he was okay at first. He said kids in Europe drink wine at dinner, so I tasted Yvonne’s”—he still wouldn’t call her “mom,” I noticed—“and it was pretty good, so she let me be in charge of refilling the glasses from the bottle, and they kept bringing more bottles, and they were expensive, but Evan said he’d pay for dinner.”

“Tasting is one thing, but you can’t drink. You’re a kid,” I said, struggling for the right thing to say. “You’re not supposed to drink.” Christ, I felt like such a hypocrite. I got people drunk for a living. How was I going to explain the difference?

“They stopped talking to me, Cady,” he argued, gesturing loosely. “I mean, she was s’posed to be spending time with me, not him. But he was making her laugh, and she just forgot I was even there. It was like being a kid all over again. Like nothing changed.”

“So you had more wine, and she didn’t notice?” I said, combing my fingers through his curls, pushing them away from his face.

“I didn’t mean to drink so much, but they told me to stay at the table. And I tried to stop her. That’s when I used my knack. But it didn’t work, Cady. Just like when I tried to use it on my dad on the boat, remember?”

Could have been because he was too soused to use it, but I didn’t say this. “You’ve only had your knack a couple of months. It’ll take time to learn to manage. Don’t worry about it. What happened then?”

“When my knack didn’t work, I couldn’t stop them. They left for a long time. And the waiter brought another bottle of wine. I didn’t mean to drink the whole thing, but it went fast.” He groaned again and closed his eyes. “It feels good and bad at the same time.”

“I know. When you drink too much, that’s what happens.”

“Dad is going to be Hulk angry.”

“Yeah, he is,” I agreed.

“I wanted her to be okay.”

I thought of my own mother, and how badly I wanted her to be okay, even after I knew she’d killed people. Even after I knew she was irretrievably lost.

“She said she was sober, but that Evan guy was selling her drugs. I saw him. I went to find them, and he was giving her a tiny bottle of something. Like that.” He pointed to my medicinal.

I stilled.

“What color was the bottle, Jupe? Do you remember?”

“Red. Like a little bottle of red wine.”

Oh my God. Could it be? The bionic elixir? “Did she drink any of it? This is important, Jupe.”

“No, I don’t think so. We started fighting, and she told him she’d come by his place later after she got me home.”

Jesus. My pulse jackhammered against my temples as I tried to sort it all out in my head.

“Dad’s going to . . .” He didn’t finish.

“I’ll deal with your dad. Go on and sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to leave the light on, in case you need to go to the bathroom. Don’t want you to trip over Mr. Piggy’s crate and smush him.”

He mumbled something and shut his eyes. After I’d made it halfway to the door, he said, “Cady?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not giving her any more chances.”

I blew out a long breath, not knowing what to say. He probably wouldn’t remember it anyway. “Go to sleep. I’ll check back in on you later.”

When I closed the door behind me, Rose was striding down the hallway. Pissed off as hell, from the looks of it. “He’ll be okay,” I assured her. “I gave him something that will help him detox. He threw up, so that’s good. Got some of it out of his system.”