Ignacio nodded down at Amy. She quickly shut her eyes. "Redmond was just doing a little pest control, and if you–"
"Pest control? Do you even know why your baby brother is alive, right now? Do you know what she did to save him? She–"
"She ate him," Gabriel said. "She ate him, Father. She's probably the reason he bluescreened. We've seen the footage. She probably consumed one of his core kernels along with his toes. Otherwise he wouldn't have needed the patch."
There was a long pause. Amy didn't open her eyes. The other Juniors were right. In trying to save their little brother she had doomed him, just like she had doomed her mother by trying to rescue her that night at graduation. It would have been better for everyone if she had done nothing. Javier and his children would be better off now if she just left. When her body had healed completely, she would. She'd seek out Rory's help on her own, or maybe not at all. Rory didn't need her kind of trouble any more than the others did.
She was so consumed by these thoughts that she almost didn't hear Javier ask: "Were you going to come find me, after you found your brother?"
Silence. After an empty moment, Ignacio said: "I don't know, Dad. Did you come find me, after you iterated me in that shithole prison in Managua?"
The rafters creaked slightly as Javier launched himself away.
? ? ? ?
It was a long time before he returned. Amy watched the boys slowly migrate to their own spaces among the rafters to sleep. They stretched out across the steel beams or hugged them like monkeys. Matteo was the exception; he found a ceiling-high pallet of concrete sacks and lay down. Ricci dropped out of the ceiling a moment later to join him. Their whispers echoed across the warehouse, but the edges of each word softened into indistinguishable sounds in the distance.
When the others seemed to be asleep, Javier emerged from a hatch in the roof and dropped down on the pallet beside her, silently. He smelled like rain. After depositing Junior in her arms, he pulled off his shirt and used it to wring out his hair. Then he spread it out over a neighbouring pallet to dry. From his pockets, he retrieved a series of food packets. He punctured the first one with a straw for her, and set it near her lips.
"You've been crying." Javier frowned. "Is Portia bullying you? Is she"
"No, it's not that." Amy propped herself on her elbows. "Shouldn't you be up there with them?" She pointed upward with her good arm.
"With this kid on my hands? No way." Javier held Junior up to the blue glow seeping in through the window. Junior squirmed and kicked. "I don't think he'll sleep at all, tonight. Up there, he'd just crawl away from me and fall down."
"I could hold onto him, and then you could go up there to sleep," Amy said. "Your boys seem to like it up there."
"They're natural climbers. Being up high feels good for them."
"And it doesn't feel good for you?"
"Well, sure, I guess, but in case you hadn't noticed, I still walk around on the ground a lot."
"But wouldn't you rather–"
"Are you physically incapable of having a conversation with me that doesn't involve fighting? Jesus." Javier folded his knees to his chest and leaned against the wall. He opened his legs enough to let Junior stand between them. The boy clung to his knees. "Look. Soon he'll be jumping."
Amy propped her head on her hand to watch. Junior bounced eagerly, each lift of his heels building to the first leap he would eventually take on his own. She wondered how the many design decisions and odd kinks in programming on the part of so many teams across the globe could align into something so perfect and so beautiful in Junior, but so broken and so ugly in herself and Portia. Didn't they possess the same operating system? How had she turned out like this – this piece of malware who almost kept this child from taking his first steps on the very legs they now shared?
As though he'd read her mind, Javier asked: "How are your joints?"
"They feel like they're made of popcorn."
His eyes roved over the wreckage of her. "You sure do have a nasty habit of getting torn apart."
"Yeah." Amy looked pointedly at his damaged hands. "You should eat, too."
"Right." He ripped open a packet of food, stared at it, and put it down. He looked at Junior. "How much did you hear?"
"All of it." For the first time in a long time, tears and not hunger blurred her vision. "I'll go tomorrow. When I'm better. I know it's not a good idea for me to stay here. I almost got Junior killed, and my mom–" Her mouth wouldn't shape the words. "My mom…"
Javier edged closer to her. He lay down parallel to her. "What about her?"
Amy squeezed her eyes shut. This made it easier to say. It was the first time she'd ever said it aloud. "She's dead."
"Oh, Christ. Christ Jesus." He slid an arm over her and pulled her in close. He spoke quietly into her ear. "I saw the smoke. I didn't know. I'm sorry."