“Probably not,” Zack admitted. “But if I had unrifted you immediately afterward, I’d go a lot easier on myself.”
She shot a sardonic grunt at his bandages. “Right. No harm done.”
“I still can’t believe you caught me.”
“Me neither. It was insane. I didn’t have a single thought in my head. It’s like the tempis just took over.”
“Well, I’m glad the tempis likes me.”
“It likes you,” she sighed. “There’s no question of that.”
In the center of Zack’s cruel and jagged problem was a hot new urge. He wanted to run his hands all over Amanda, explore her with his fingers like a blind man would. He assumed whatever drug Evan had slipped him was still floating around in his veins, eating away at his formidable inhibitions.
Amanda finished mending him, then helped him slide his shirt back on. She told him that he’d have to take it easy for the next few weeks. Zack humored her as if such a thing were possible.
After clearing away the bandage debris, she finally met his stare with deep green sadness.
“She’ll wake up,” Zack assured her. “I know it.”
“How? How can you be sure about anything? It seems like no matter what we do—”
“Amanda . . .”
“It’s just going to get worse.”
“Hey.” He reached for her golden cross necklace and squeezed it between his fingers. “Whatever happened to the woman of faith?”
“Today happened. Now where’s the agnostic with no answers?”
“He was saved,” Zack replied, with a dark and feeble smirk.
Amanda placed a soft hand on his cheek. Her sister’s angry words still stuck in her thoughts like a bee’s broken stinger. You’ve been a widow for eight weeks! Eight weeks, and this is how you act!
She pulled away. “Don’t sleep on your side. And force a few coughs to break up the fluid in your lungs.”
“Amanda . . .”
“I’ll check on you later.”
She fled the room without looking back. Zack watched her depart, then groaned his way back to the mattress. Though he folded his hands over his chest like a serene cadaver, his eyes danced with life and uncertainty.
—
While Hannah and Zack convalesced, the others passed the time in the small living area. Amanda and Theo sat on the couch like waiting room strangers—staring at walls, avoiding each other’s gaze. They both had Hannah on their minds, a hanging mobile of worries that would only spin faster if they acknowledged each other.
At seven o’clock, David made everything worse by turning on the lumivision.
“Sorry, Amanda. We need to know.”
As they feared, their awful brunch had become a top story nationwide. More than a hundred photographs had been snapped during the eighty-eight seconds Zack dangled in a great tempic arm. Most of the pictures were worm’s-eye shots from the grotto, distant enough to obscure his features. Mia balked at the most damning photo—a crystal-clear image of Zack that had been shot through a telephoto lens. One reporter remarked that he looked like a mouse being crushed by a python, an observation that sent the python to tears.
Mia rubbed Amanda’s back. “This isn’t your fault. It’s Evan’s.”
“It doesn’t matter. Everyone’s going to recognize Zack now.”
David tilted his head at the image. “No they won’t. Unless he finds another way to float horizontally with a contorted expression of pain, no one will make the connection.”
Soon the news report transitioned to a live Q&A with the lead Dep on scene, shot downstairs in the lobby. Andy Cahill was a leathery codger who delivered curt words through a bushy mustache and a sandy baritone. His whiskers curled in a patient smile as he indulged the reporter’s questions. Are the people involved still at large? Yes. Do you believe they’re foreign terrorists? Doesn’t seem likely. Do you think the shooting death of the hotel manager is somehow connected? That does seem likely. Anything you can tell us about the tempic device that was used today? Nope.
When teasingly asked if he considered the possibility of Gothams, Cahill chuckled softly and told the reporter she watched too many movies.
All throughout the interview, Theo sat forward in rapt attention, fixing his gaze on a female agent in the background. Though she moved too fast to provide a decent look, her dark skin and flowing dreadlocks were enough to ring every bell in Theo’s head. His thoughts screamed with recognition, as if she’d been a crucial part of his life from the moment he first drew breath.
Once the scene changed, he snapped out of his trance and flipped his mirrored senses. It wasn’t the past he knew her from. She was a towering presence to come. That dark and faceless woman loomed over every corner of his future.
—
Propriety went out the window at bedtime, when Mia crawled under the covers with Zack, and David asked Amanda for permission to sleep with her sister.