“Let’s hear it,” he tells Claire, who’s standing beside Mr. White Coat looking like a middle-schooler dragged into the principal’s office for bullying the scrawny kid.
“She’s lost eight pounds and twenty percent of her muscle mass. She’s on Diovan for the high blood pressure, Phenergan for the nausea, amoxicillin and streptomycin to keep her lymphatic system tamped down, but we’re still struggling with the fever,” Claire reports.
“‘Struggling with the fever’?”
Claire’s eyes cut away. “On the upside, her liver and kidneys are still functioning normally. A bit of fluid in her lungs, but we’re—”
Vosch waves her off and steps up to my bedside. Bright bird eyes glittering.
“Do you want to live?”
I answer without hesitating. “Yes.”
“Why?”
The question takes me off guard for some reason. “I don’t understand.”
“You cannot overcome us. No one can. Not if you numbered seven times seven billion when it began. The world is a clock and the clock has wound to its final second—why would you want to live?”
“I don’t want to save the world,” I tell him. “I’m just hoping I might get the opportunity to kill you.”
His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes glitter and dance. I know you, his eyes say. I know you.
“Hope,” he whispers. “Yes.” Nodding: He’s pleased with me. “Hope, Marika. Cling to your hope.” He turns to Claire and Mr. White Coat. “Pull her off the meds.”
Mr. White Coat’s face turns the color of his smock. Claire starts to say something, then looks away. Vosch turns back to me.
“What is the answer?” he demands. “It isn’t rage. What is it?”
“Indifference.”
“Try again.”
“Detachment.”
“Again.”
“Hope. Despair. Love. Hate. Anger. Sorrow.” I’m shaking; my fever must be spiking. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“Better,” he says.
65
IT GETS SO BAD that night, I can barely make it through four innings of chaseball.
XMEDS
“Heard a rumor going around they took you off your meds,” Razor says, shaking the quarter in his closed fist. “True?”
“The only thing left in my IV bag is saline to keep my kidneys from shutting down.”
He glances at my vitals on the monitor. Frowning. When Razor frowns, he reminds me of a little boy who’s stubbed his toe and thinks he’s too big to cry.
“So you must be getting better.”
“Guess so.” Tap-tap on the bedrail.
“Okay,” he breathes. “My queen is up. Look out.”
My back stiffens. My vision blurs. I lean to the side and empty my stomach, what little is inside my stomach, onto the white tile. Razor leaps up with a disgusted cry, toppling the board.
“Hey!” he shouts. Not at me. At the black eye above us. “Hey, a little help here!”
No help comes. He looks at the monitor, looks at me, and says, “I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m okay.”
“Sure. You’re fine, just fine!” He goes to the sink, wets a clean towel, and lays it across my forehead. “Fine, my ass! Why the hell did they take you off the meds?”
“Why not?” I’m fighting the urge to hurl again.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ll die without them.” He glares at the camera.
“Maybe you should hand me that container over there.”
He dabs at the crud sticking on my chin, refolds the cloth, grabs the container, and places it on my lap.
“Razor.”
“Yeah?”
“Please don’t put that back on my face.”
“Huh? Oh. Shit. Yeah. Hang on.” He grabs a clean towel and runs it under the water. His hands are shaking. “You know what it is? I know what it is. Why didn’t I think of it? Why didn’t you think of it? The meds must be interfering with the system.”
“What system?”
“The 12th System. The one they injected into you, Sherlock. The hub and his forty thousand little friends to supercharge the other eleven.” He puts the cool towel on my forehead. “You’re cold. You want me to find another blanket?”
“No, I’m burning up.”
“It’s a war,” he says. He taps his chest. “In here. You gotta declare a truce, Ringer.”
I shake my head. “No peace.”
He nods, squeezing my wrist beneath the thin blanket. Squats on the floor to gather the fallen chess pieces. Curses when he can’t find the quarter. Decides he can’t leave the vomit just lying there. Grabs the dirty towel he used to wipe my chin and swabs the deck on his hands and knees. He’s still cursing when the door opens and Claire comes into the room.
“Good timing!” Razor barks at her. “Hey, can’t you at least give her the anti-puke serum?”
Claire jerks her head toward the door. “Get out.” She points at the box. “And take that with you.”
Razor glowers at her, but he does it. I see again the tightly contained force behind his angelic features. Careful, Razor. That’s not the answer.
Then we’re alone, and Claire studies the monitor for a long, silent moment.