—
Everything happened as foretold. At 5:02 in the morning, the sky over Nemeth offered ten seconds of warning drizzle before coming down in sheets. Dawn arrived in the form of a hundred lightning flashes.
At 9:20, Theo glanced down at his eggs and noticed a fresh drop of blood, another warning drizzle. He pressed a napkin to his nose, then looked to his troubled friends.
“Shit.”
The pain hit him like a cyclone. His muscles turned to liquid and he fell out of his chair. By the time David carried him to the couch, he’d lost all sense of time and place.
Theo lay on his back, writhing on the cushions like an uneasy dreamer. He was only marginally aware of the conversations that occurred around him, the feminine hands that comforted him in turns. While Mia stroked his fingers with sisterly affection and Amanda tended to him with clinical diligence, it was Hannah’s intimate caress that brought him back to the present. He lifted the damp cloth from his brow and tossed her a bleary stare.
“What time is it . . . ?”
She checked the grandfather clock. “Quarter after one. How you holding up?”
“Worse than anything I ever felt. I wanna . . . I wanna die.”
Hannah squeezed his hand. “Oh, sweetie. Just hang in there. The pain won’t last.”
“It’s not the pain . . .”
“What do you mean?”
Amanda rushed into the room and pulled at Hannah’s shoulder. “Let me look at him.”
“Just a second. We’re talking.” She looked to Theo. “What do you mean? Are you having visions?”
“I’m not just seeing,” he moaned. “I’m feeling. I keep feeling you guys . . . dying. Over and over. I feel Zack’s blood all over me. God. I can smell it.”
He seized Amanda’s arm, his eyes red and cracked. “I can’t take it. You have to knock me out. I don’t care how you do it. Just knock me out. Please.”
Amanda rooted through their pile of store-bought painkillers, then fed him the one with the drowsiest side effects. He gradually drifted off to sleep. Judging by his somnolent moans and cries, it seemed the future followed him there.
The next forty-eight hours passed like weeks for the sympathetic Silvers. By the morning of Sunday, October 3, they were all as pale and unrested as Theo.
They sat around the living room in a dreary daze, watching David jab the fireplace with a metal poker. Hannah cradled Theo’s head in her lap as he twitched in restless half slumber. Nobody thought he was getting better.
Hannah spoke in a hoarse and weary rasp. “We need to do something. He can’t take another day of this.”
“I’ll go to the drugstore,” Zack offered. “See if there’s something else.”
Amanda curled up with Mia on the love seat, absently stroking her hair. “We’ve been there twice. It’s all the same weak stuff. He needs a prescription-strength remedy.”
“We’re back on this,” David complained.
“Yes, we’re back on this. I’ve made up my mind. I’m taking him to Marietta.”
Yesterday, during their umpteenth discussion of Theo’s plight, Mia shared the information that the girl with two watches had given her about the local health fair. Amanda confirmed by phone that it was still going on and that anyone was welcome to bring their untreated ailments.
Even as she’d broached the idea, Mia wasn’t sure it was a good one. David had a stronger opinion on the matter.
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me last time . . .”
Amanda sighed at him. “I heard you, David. I understand your concern. But a health fair isn’t the same as a hospital. There’s no reason to assume it’s being monitored.”
“It’s a place where fugitives are likely to seek treatment. Of course it’s being monitored. You might as well phone the Deps now and tell them you’re coming.”
“David, I’ve worked at these things—”
“On another world.”
“They’re understaffed, overcrowded, and wildly disorganized. Even you wouldn’t be able to find us in that chaos.”
“You’re willing to bet your freedom on this?”
“I am,” said Hannah.
“I am,” said Amanda. She looked at her sister. “You’re not going.”
“Bullshit. You think you can lift him by yourself? Your arms are like pipe cleaners.”
Amanda shook her head. “We can’t carry him in. He’ll have to walk. I can get him there.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mia said. “I know the way.”
“No.”
“Hell, no,” Zack uttered.
David chuckled with bleak derision. “Like lemmings off a cliff.”
“What do you suggest we do instead?” Hannah asked.
“You know what I suggest. We could be there by nightfall.”
She flicked a brusque hand. “Of course. I should’ve guessed. Peter, Peter, Peter. Your magic-bean solution for everything.”
“He may know the nature of Theo’s illness. He may have a cure.”