“It’s been a month,” she corrects. “You’re due next week, but I may still be away. I don’t want you to miss it. It’s important for you to keep your iron levels up.”
“Fine,” he grumbles, rolling up his sleeve. Holly cleans the area and injects his arm with quick, practiced motions. Jack’s so used to the sensation he doesn’t even wince anymore.
Even before the needle is out, she can see the change in him. There’s a slight flush to his cheeks; his skin and eyes are brighter. And she’s sure she’s not imagining it: The mark on his chin, which by itself would heal to a scar, has already begun to fade.
“You know,” she says, capping the needle, “we may be able to start weaning you off these. You’ve done so well, and it’s been a long time since you’ve had any problems.”
“Do you think so? What about my iron levels?” He doesn’t sound convinced. And why would he? Since her discovery, Jack has never gone more than a month without an injection, because after thirty days she can see him fade. His energy level sags, his coordination diminishes, the ghosts of old scars trace their way along his skin.
But it’s more than that. There’s a buzz that comes with the blood, a high of well-being. She’s sure part of his reluctance to cut back comes from the threat of losing that brief high. Still, if Holly can’t find Eden, she’ll have to stretch out what she has until she can perfect the synthetic version of the blood. She’s close, so close, but it’s not enough. Not yet.
If she’s careful and reduces the dosage, there’s enough blood in that test tube in her lab for two months. Another six-month supply stockpiled at the Cornwall cottage. Beyond that . . .
“I think we should try cutting back to once every month and a half—see how it goes. If you don’t feel well, we can always go back to the old schedule.”
“I guess.” He rolls his sleeve down. Still sulking, he won’t meet her eyes. Fine. He can stay mad so long as he stays safe—that’s all she cares about.
* * *
After she’s done cleaning the kitchen, she tells Jack to pack a bag and takes her own suitcase out of the hall closet. Packing is something else to focus on besides the constant whispering worry that’s taking up all the room in her head.
Once she’s sorted what she needs, she slides her hand beneath the lining of the suitcase. Tucked into a slit in the fabric is a photograph, faded and creased. In the center, sitting on a low tree branch, is a small blonde girl. Even frozen in this fragment of time, she gives the impression of irrepressible energy. Caught in the act of turning toward the photographer, her heart-shaped face is a soft blur.
But Holly can remember every detail. She’s never needed a photograph to recall her daughter. In order to function, she’s just had to make the decision not to.
Holly’s tried to think of the blood as an antibody, a way to help Jack fight the damage done during the crash. She’s seen how the injections have changed him, erasing scars, healing his bones, giving him a chance to live a normal life, the life that was denied to his father and his twin. What mother wouldn’t give her child that second chance?
She’s always done everything she can for Eden too. After her fall, she made sure Eden was seen by the very best doctors. And they’ve all told her the same thing: There was no chance of recovery. Still, she’s tried every cure she can think of—some legal, some not—to wake her up, to stop her accelerated aging. None of them have worked.
So who has she hurt? No one, she tells herself. She’s saved everyone she can. It’s just that “everyone” has turned out to be only Jack somehow.
And now, without Eden, he’s at risk too.
Chapter Five
Holly’s awake in the morning when her alarm goes off. She’s barely slept, torn between worry over Eden and Jack. And there’s a storm coming, a bad one. Now, even in the air-conditioned apartment, pressure builds behind her eyes. Her right leg aches so much she has to rub it before she can stand.
There’s no sound from the other end of the apartment. Jack’s room is dark. She has to shake him awake. He moans, pulls the covers over his head, and turns away from her.
“Jack! Get up now,” she says, shaking him again. She hears the impatience in her voice, tries to soften it. “I won’t be able to take you to school if you don’t hurry. I’ll miss my flight.”
He mutters something, and she leaves him to dress and heads back to her bedroom. Her right leg is dragging, and the pressure in her head is relentless. She hesitates, then opens her bureau drawer and pulls out a nondescript plastic container, the type that might contain an inexpensive brand of cold cream. She dips a finger in and scoops out a minute amount of lotion, rubs it on her temples, across her forehead. Dips in again, rubs the lotion down her leg, from knee to ankle, where the faintest of white scars twists along the skin.
Relief isn’t immediate, but the pressure in her head lessens, and her leg no longer aches as much. Even better, when she enters the kitchen a few minutes later wheeling her suitcase, Jack is there, eating a peanut butter sandwich. He takes the bag from her and brings it to the front hall. He’s not wearing the new sneakers, but she lets it go.
“What about you?” she asks. “Are you packed?”
“Yeah,” he mumbles.
“Well, bring out your bag. We need to go—the driver will be waiting for us.”
“I’ll pick it up after school,” he says. “I don’t want to have to carry it around all day, and it won’t fit in my locker.”
“Fine.” She picks her purse up off the counter, slings it over her shoulder. “But I want you to run in and get it and then go directly to Barry’s house, understood?”
He nods.
“All right then. Let’s go.”
They ride down the elevator in silence. The driver loads her bag into the trunk while Jack and Holly slip into the back seat.
“You’ll be able to reach me on my mobile anytime,” she says to Jack. “And I’ll call you when I land.”
“Okay.”
“Anything you want me to bring you?”
He shakes his head. “Will you see Grandma?”
“I don’t know,” she says. Jane is hard to reach at the best of times. And the thought of explaining to her what’s happened makes the constant pain in Holly’s stomach even sharper. But . . . “I suppose so.”
They’re a block from school when Jack points to the window. “Look, there’s Brett.” Holly leans forward, but she can’t find Jack’s friend in the scrum of khaki-and polo-wearing teens milling toward the building.
“Could you let me out here? Please?”
Holly hesitates. “But I won’t see you for a week. Maybe longer.”
“Mom, it’s one block. Please!” He looks at her beseechingly, his expression almost identical to when he was younger. But back then, he was always begging her not to go. Her pocket baby, she called him, because he always wanted to be in her lap, snuggled under her arm. When she traveled for business and couldn’t take him, he cried every time she left. Once he’d even tried to pack himself in her suitcase as a surprise.
“Mom!”
“Sorry. I was thinking.” She hesitates a second longer, but that little boy is long gone, so she relents and tells the driver to pull over. As soon as the car is stopped, Jack opens the door, but she pulls him back so she can kiss him. She inhales, trying to capture his scent. He squirms away.
“Bye,” he says. He slides across the seat and swings his backpack up in one easy move. In three steps, he’s caught up to the edge of the crowd. She watches, but he doesn’t look back.
* * *
“The airport, Dr. Darling?”