When they got back to the suite, changed into their PJs, and started watching The Social Network, but Nick was nodding off within half an hour.

"Aren't you guys tired?" he asked, looking at Darcie and Sumire, who were sitting in the same bed, sharing a bowl of popcorn.

"Are you kidding?" Darcie asked in disbelief. "Andrew Garfield and Armie Hammer, doubled, in the same picture? I love this movie."

"Yeah, me too," Sumire chimed in with a smile.

"Well, I can't keep my eyes open," Nick said, sliding off the other bed. "Andrew and Armie's charms notwithstanding. I'm going to sleep in the other room, okay? See you in the morning."

The girls called out their goodnights without even looking away from the screen, and Nick left, shaking his head and chuckling.

By the time the movie was over, Darcie had fallen asleep as well, leaving Sumire in a bit of an awkward position. Technically, Darcie and Nick were supposed to be sharing a room, but now they were each sleeping in a different room; should she wake Darcie up and send her to Nick's room?

She decided that this would be picking at nits, and that there would be no harm in two girls sharing a room. She moved to the other bed and turned off the light, reflecting that she might come out of this week with another friend.

💥💥💥

Nick was roused from a sleep so deep that for a moment he had no idea where he was. Someone was shaking him.

"Nick! Nicky!"

"Darcie?" He sat up as she switched on the light. "What's the matter?" He blinked at her in the sudden light.

"You'd better come. Something's wrong with Sumire."

"What?" He was already getting out of bed as he oriented himself. He was in a suite at the Plaza. He glanced at the clock on the table. Three thirty-seven AM. "Where is she?"

"We fell asleep in the other room watching the movie," Darcie explained as she pulled him along. "She woke up making these weird noises. Hurry up!"

"Noises?" Nick picked up his pace and followed his sister, not at a run, exactly, but walking pretty quickly, in his bare feet and USC sweats and T-shirt, his usual sleeping attire. He could hear Sumire before he even got to the room, but at first his brain refused to believe the sounds he was hearing were even human.

"Is that her?" he asked Darcie as they crossed the lounge area. It sounded almost like the noises he heard whales make underwater on Planet Earth and other similar programs. It was a keening sound, soft and strange.

Darcie nodded and bit her lips together as they entered the room where she'd been sleeping.

Nick stopped dead when he saw Sumire, swallowing with a throat that was suddenly bone dry.

She was sitting up in the bed, with all of the blankets kicked off to the side. She looked very small in the middle of the large bed with her braid hanging down over her shoulder. Her eyes were half open, but he could tell she didn't see him or his sister.

She was crying.

This shocked Nick. He'd never seen Sumire cry before, not in all the time he'd known her. Not even when she'd been attacked had even one tear escaped her.

Her knees were drawn up, and her arms were wrapped tightly around them, her face tucked behind. Her mouth was open, making that odd, keening cry.

Then she spoke.

"No. No no nononononono! Pleathe," she begged. The pitch and timbre of her speech was high and unmodulated, nothing like the pleasant, low-pitched voice she had now, and hearing her made the hair on the back of Nick's neck stand straight up. He'd heard of this before, but he'd never experienced it, and had always believed it was just an exaggeration. But now, standing here, watching and listening to Sumire, he could feel the short hairs separating and sticking straight out from his neck, stiffening and poking out. Even the hairs on his arm were doing it.

"Ith my birthday, not today, okay?" Sumire continued in her pitiful child's voice. "It hurth so much, and I don't want you to." She held her hands up in a warding off gesture. "It maketh me bleed, pleathe, Marcuth, I'll call you daddy, I'll do whatever you want, pleathe no!"

Darcie put her hand on Nick's arm, squeezing hard.

"Oh dear Jesus god," she murmured.

Suddenly, Sumire kicked out, knocking herself off the bed with incredible strength. She flailed out with her arms, knocking a glass off the table next to it, shattering it, missing hitting the corner of the table with her head by mere inches.

Nick jumped into action.

"No, Nick, you're not supposed to wake someone having a nightmare," Darcie said urgently, keeping hold of his arm.

"What am I supposed to do, she's going to hurt herself," he replied, shaking her arm off and continuing to move toward Sumire.

He grasped her from where she'd fallen between the table and the bed.

"Mimi-chan? Mimi-chan?" He spoke softly as he lifted her onto the bed, though his grip was strong. He was prepared for anything, including having to fight with her.

Which at first she did, thrashing as he held on with all of his strength. She kicked out, connecting with his chest.

"No! Nonononononono!" She had both hands between her legs in a pitiful attempt to protect herself, which made Nick want to weep. He did notice, however, that when she said "No," it was in her regular voice, the voice of the Sumire he knew, and no longer the horrifying voice of the terrified, lisping child.

"Shh, shh, Mimi-chan, Mimi-chan, it's me, it's Nick," he crooned as he held her on the bed, keeping his arms around her, turning her so she could no longer kick him.

Darcie came around on the other side to add her strength, and between the two of them they managed to immobilize her and keep her from hurting herself or either of them. Nick flashed his sister a look of gratitude.

Within a couple of minutes Sumire had calmed down to the point that Darcie could let go of her, and Nick just kept an arm around her shoulders.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Sumire asked in a soft voice as she looked around.

Nick cautiously removed his arm from her shoulder, saying, "Uh, you were having a nightmare, don't you remember?"

Sumire looked between Darcie and Nick, turning her head slowly. She took in the blankets, the out of place table, the spilled water and broken glass, then looked back at Nick, gingerly touching the back of her head.

"Wow, must've been a helluva nightmare," she said with a little smile.

Nick nodded. "Do you remember any of it?"

Sumire shook her head and shrugged. "Just, you know, your run of the mill nightmare. Someone was chasing me through a forest or whatever? I don't remember anything else." She swallowed. "Sorry to scare you both, and sorry about the mess."

Nick and Darcie made eye contact over Sumire's head. She saw this, and asked, "What? What are you not telling me?"

"You talked while you were having your nightmare, Sumire," Nick said, sounding almost apologetic.

"Oh?" The dread in her voice was almost palpable. "What did I say?"

"You said enough."

"Oh."

Watching Sumire try not to fall apart was a valiant thing, and Nick wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, do anything, but of course he couldn't.

"Oh god," she finally said, dissolving into tears once more. Her shoulders sagged as she put her palms to her face. "No one knows, no one's ever known," she said through her hands.

"What about your mother?" Darcie asked.

Nick felt sick at the look on his little sister's face. For all the terrible upbringing she'd had, she'd never suffered any kind of abuse, and he was sad and angry that she had to see this sordid and disgusting side of life in such terrible detail.

Sumire shook her head and looked up, eyes streaming.

"Marcus told me that he'd send both of us away if I told her! My mother was so happy, for the first time in her life! I couldn't do that to her, I just couldn't."

"When did it start?"

"Right after they were married. He came into my room at night and told me we were going to something special. A 'special father daughter activity,' he called it. I was nine." Sumire said something else, but it was unintelligible because of her crying.

"And how long did it go on?"

"I was twelve, I think." Sumire shrugged. "That part of my life is sort of a blur. I got sent away to boarding school in Japan after that, and only went back for vacations and things. I think I got too old for him, and he wasn't attracted to me anymore, but I'm not sure--" Sumire started coughing, and Nick thought she was going to throw up. He tentatively rubbed her back for a few seconds, though she shrugged his hand away and he stopped almost immediately.

Nick took a deep breath and got off the bed, walking around in tight circles, not sure what to do with himself.

"Nicky, stop, you're scaring her," Darcie admonished.

Nick looked at his sister. He could tell she was trying to keep her voice soothing and even, and when he looked at Sumire, he knew she was right. He realized he'd been punching his fist into the palm of his other hand, and he made himself stop.

"I feel strange," Sumire said. "Like I'm lighter, like I'm going to float away or something."

"Probably because you finally told someone," Darcie said. She put her hand on top of Sumire's for a moment. "So, what do you want to do now?"

Sumire swallowed. "I don't know," she admitted.

"Do you want to confront him?" Nick asked, sitting back down on the bed.

"Shut up Nick," Darcy said. "That's what you want, that's obvious."

And Nick knew she was right. The image of that huge man, on top of tiny Sumire, violating her, wouldn't leave his brain.

Sumire shook her head violently.

"I want my mom," she said simply, fresh tears coursing down her face.

Nick rose immediately. "I'll go get her, okay?" He nodded. "Don't worry, Mimi-chan, things are going to get better now, you'll see."

He slipped his shoes on and took the elevator down to Sumire's mother's room in the early morning silence of the hotel.

He knocked on her door, wondering how in the world he was going to break this to the elegant woman with the diamonds and chignon. This was going to send her entire world crashing down, nothing less. But he couldn't just bring her to the suite and leave it for Sumire to tell her, could he?

"Who is it?" he heard a cautious voice ask.

"It's Nick Pensieri, Mrs. Dawson," he answered. "I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, but it's an emergency."

The door opened, and Christine was standing there, a peignoir pulled over her nightgown.

"Oh my goodness, Nick, what's the matter?" she asked. "Come in, please."

Nick followed her and stood awkwardly in the middle of her room. "I'm sorry," he began again.

"It's fine, I had to wake up soon for my train anyway," she said, waving his apology away. "What's the matter? Is something wrong with Sumire?" She turned to face him.

"Ma'am, there's no easy way to tell you, so maybe you'd better just come with me?" Nick suggested.

"Nick? You're really scaring me," Christine replied, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling her peignoir closed at the throat in a move very reminiscent of Sumire. "Please tell me, right now."

Nick sighed.

"Sumire had a nightmare, Christine, some kind of flashback night terror or something, about being abused." Nick took a deep breath, not sure how to continue. He closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to look at her face. "By your husband, I'm afraid. When she was very young. It was quite a horrible nightmare, and she's asking for you." He swallowed and opened his eyes.

Christine hadn't moved. The horror, the disgust, the fury that Nick was expecting hadn't appeared, but instead he saw cautious watchfulness.

Nick felt his world turning inside out.

No. No way.

No fucking way.

"You knew?"

Nick took a small step toward Christine where she sat, statue-like, on the edge of the bed.

"You knew. You knew."

Nick held his hand out to grasp the edge of the dresser, feeling like he might keel over if he didn't.

"You knew and did nothing."

"You should've seen her with her father in Japan," Christine said in a conversational voice. It was as if Nick hadn't even spoken.

What?

"Like some private club for two, just the two of them, always yammering away in Japanese, while we wasted our lives in that shabby house, living our shabby lives, grubbing away in the dirt--"

"She was happy!" Nick interrupted, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Oh, she was happy, she was happy, but what about me?" Christine asked, her voice rising. "Then, mercifully, he dies, and finally I have a chance at a life." She was clutching the bedspread so tightly now that her knuckles were white. "We move back to Boston with Marcus and finally, something for me. And silly, laughing, lisping Sumire learns that everything comes at a price, that all that joy she had in Japan while I suffered in silence came at a price!"

"Are you out of your mind?" Nick's voice was low with barely contained fury. "You're saying that she paid for her happiness, and yours, by letting that gigantic monster rape her, for years?"

Christine turned away from Nick, impatience in her gesture.

Nick turned back toward the door. "I'm going to tell her that you already left, that I just missed you, because knowing all of this would kill her." He wiped away a tear that was streaking down his face.

Christine finally turned to face him. "Whatever you may think of me, Nick, I'm still her mother."

Nick turned the knob on the door as he looked back at her, shaking his head. "You're no mother," he said with finality. "You're a ghoul, plain and simple."

And he turned and left, shutting the door with a slam behind him.