If he hadn’t been exhausted, the remark would’ve been much more biting, I knew. He was coming along. He truly was. I changed my bandage with now-practiced hands. The wound, too, was coming along. Not with the speed Michael would’ve shown, but for your average person who got shot in the side, it was doing well enough. As for my head, it still ached, but not as fiercely. I’d put away the pain pills that morning. A little pain was worth enduring to keep your edge. The dizziness and nausea had mostly faded as well. They only popped up once or twice a day at the most, usually in the face of Michael’s enormous and not particularly selective appetite. That kid would eat anything, and I did mean anything—the more grease the better.
By the time I finished cleaning up, Michael was in bed with the ferret paws up on the pillow beside him. Walking over, I switched off the lamp. “ ’ Night, Misha.”
He was already gone, one hand tucked under the pillow. Except for the rat, it was a warm and homey scene straight from the past. We hadn’t shared a room when we were younger; the age difference was enough that I wanted my own. But there were times I’d walk in and find Lukas asleep in my bed with one of my comics clutched in his hand. Kid brothers . . . What could you do?
Pulling the covers up over his shoulders, I sat on the edge of the opposite bed and watched him sleep. It probably wasn’t a first for him. He’d as much as said the Institute either watched or listened to him, John, and the other children at night while they slept. I was still thinking about the lost John and wondering. He had the Never Never Land name, but it was also Jericho’s. And then there was the resemblance Michael had mentioned. Could it be that Jericho had done his malicious work on his own flesh and blood, his own namesake? That might explain the abolishment of the John designation. That was a definitive sign of personal interest, personal offense.
Personal rage.
That was telling. He did have emotion. It was doubtful that any of them were the good kind, but they did exist and that could reveal weaknesses in him. Another thing it revealed was that if Jericho would kill his own family, the things he would do to us were worth avoiding—very much so. That wasn’t news to me, by any means, but it was an unpleasant reminder.
Didn’t life just love to hand those out?
Chapter 21
“No luck?”
I looked up from the cell phone in my hand to see Michael sitting balanced on the overlook wall. We were currently stopped at a national forest in Georgia, and I couldn’t have pried Michael away with a crowbar. He was in awe of the massively tumbling waterfall below. The breathtaking sight along with the rushing sound and rising rainbow mist enthralled him. It was something to see, I admitted, and the view Michael was getting was even more spectacular because he was seeing it for the first time. It wasn’t just the waterfall, but everything that went along with it: wild, green nature in general. Institute field trips had consisted of places where people—victims—congregated. This was something entirely new and pictures in books hadn’t done it justice. Leaning so far over the edge that I’d had to restrain the urge to grab a handful of his shirt, my brother had watched the violent storm of water for nearly a full hour. Hair gone damp and floating on the wind, he finally was able to tear himself away long enough to watch my last futile call. “No. Reception here is for shit.” It was true, but there was a bigger truth behind it. I could have had a tower up my ass and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Anatoly wasn’t to be found. We hadn’t kept the closest contact since I’d graduated college, just the occasional call or holiday visit, but he had made it clear that if I needed him I’d be able to track him down. That I was finding it so difficult wasn’t a good sign. The feds must be hot on his heels for him to go under this deep.
“Who are you trying to call?” With face flushed from the chilled air, he was bundled in a jacket with the sky behind him in a brilliant blue backdrop. Except for an unusual inner stillness and eyes too old for his face, he looked like any other kid on vacation.
“Didn’t I tell you?” I asked, surprised. At the shake of his head I stretched out my legs and lay back on the picnic table. “Jesus, talk about your scrambled brains.” The sun was distant and its warmth nonexistent, but I closed my eyes anyway and pretended I was back in Miami soaking up the rays—or maybe in Key West. It would be in the seventies there, almost perfect. I might be the first generation out of the home country, but cold had never been a friend of mine.
“Did that happen before or after you hit your head on the car?”
“Punk-ass kid,” I said with sleepy equanimity as the light glowed red through my eyelids. “I’m trying to reach Anatoly. Our father,” I amended, opening my eyes to slide my gaze his way.