55
NOAH
IT ISN’T REAL,” I SAY. I try to sound certain, and fail.
“It is very real,” my father replies. “Daniel has been given a variant of a venom that will cause him to go into shock, and then his organs will fail in an hour or two unless he receives the antivenin. He’s being monitored very carefully right now, but I will need to make a phone call to make sure he gets it, once Mara has expired.”
“Mara?” Jamie says, squinting through the laptop screen. A bruise shadows the left side of his face.
“Jamie,” she whispers. Then, “Jamie, is Daniel—”
“He’s alive,” Jamie says. “We got whacked in the subway tunnel or something, woke up here. He’s sick, though.” Jamie flicks a glance at Mara’s brother, wincing at the movement. “He’s—he was foaming at the mouth before. These people, they came in and used a crash cart on him. I saw everything. I tried to make them listen to me, but . . .” He shakes his head. “It was like they couldn’t hear me. Like I was on mute.”
Mara is silent. I used to be able to read her thoughts on her face, but now, nothing.
“Where are you?” she asks him. Clever girl.
Jamie tips his face to the ceiling. “Generically bland room, as always. I woke up with a hood over my face. I don’t know.” Jamie’s eyebrows furrow, and he tries to lean forward in the chair. “Wait—is that fucking—is that Jude with you? And Noah?”
Jude doesn’t respond. I do.
“We’ll find you,” I say to him.
Jamie looks over at Daniel, whose lips are pale and chapped. Daniel has a cannula beneath his nose, and there are IVs attached to the backs of both wrists. Then Jamie says, “Whatever you guys are being told to do, you should do it.”
My father watches me. Jude watches me. Jamie watches me. Mara does not.
She watches her brother. Her eyes never leave him, even as I reach for the gun.