I sniff hard and bite my lips inward, tasting the rain and the tenderness left from his kiss. “Yes,” I say. “A little freaked out and wet, but at least I’m me.”
He laces his fingers in mine. I can hear the surf pounding below, and the rain falls in solid gray sheets around us.
“Let’s get inside.” Linus tugs me back toward the door, and we go back in.
As I close the door, shutting out the noise of the rain, my gaze goes instinctively back to where ARSELF is still written in the steam on the glass. Could the voice really have just been waiting for me to say its name? I swipe the letters clear with my hand. Then I stay where I am, plucking at my soaked clothes and dripping on the wooden floor while Linus runs to the bathroom. He reappears with a couple of towels, and I dry off as well as I can. I can’t believe I’ve managed to get my borrowed clothes all wet, too. I hug my towel around me, pulling the cottony nubs against my neck.
Linus pulls off his shirt before he dries off, too. He catches me looking and lifts his eyebrows. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No.” But, naturally, I start blushing.
He smiles. “You could take your clothes off, too,” he says.
“What is it with you?” I ask. “My sister’s right here.”
I glance toward the couch, and at that moment, Dubbs turns her head and opens heavy-lidded eyes.
“Rosie?” she says in a voice thick with sleep.
Joy spikes in my heart. I sink to the rug beside the couch and lightly smooth her hair back from her pink cheek. “Hey, girl,” I say. “I’m right here. How’re you doing?”
She tightens her grip on her blanket and shifts her gaze around the room. “Where are we?” she asks, frowning.
I am so happy to have her awake and speaking like normal that I have to kiss her and ruffle her hair. “We’re in California, thanks to you,” I say. “You left me a secret note, remember? You know Linus, I think.”
He has discreetly pulled his wet shirt back on.
“Hi,” he says.
Dubbs pushes up on one elbow. “Is this two forty Mallorca Way?”
“No,” I say. “We’re at a friend’s house by the ocean. We’re safe. How much do you remember?”
She scratches a hand in her hair and then draws one of her blond curls into her mouth. “We were in Las Vegas, camping,” she says. Her eyes search the room again. “Where’s Ma and Daddy?”
“We’re working on that,” I say. “I’m sure they’re just fine. We’re tracking them down.”
Dubbs sits up further and puts her arms around me, leaning her nose against my neck. “I want to go home, Rosie,” she says. “That’s a fact.”
“I know,” I say. “Me, too.”
“You’re all wet,” she says, drawing back again.
I laugh. “I was out in the rain.”
She looks suspiciously toward Linus. “He’s wet, too.”
Smiling, Linus tosses his wet towel into her lap. “So are you. Or damp, at least.”
With a surprised look, she touches a hand to her belly. Then she shoves his towel to the floor, tugs away her blanket, and lifts her gown to expose the catheter that’s coming out of her lower abdomen.
“What’s this?” she asks, her voice going shrill. “What is this thing?”
“It’s okay. Calm down,” I say, taking her hands. “It’s a catheter. I can take it out. I had one myself once, and it came right out.”
Her eyes go wide with fear. “What happened to me? Where’s Ma?”
“Listen, I need you to take a deep breath,” I say calmly. “We’ve had some trouble. I won’t lie. But for now we’re okay, and that’s what matters. I need you to be brave and not panic, okay?”
She looks toward Linus and then around the room before she focuses on me again. “Are we going to die?”
“No. Of course not,” I say. “Why would you say that? Nobody’s dying.”
“Okay,” she says. Her eyes are still huge. “Okay, but you have to tell me everything. I want to know.”
“I will. I promise,” I say. “How about if we get this out of you first? All right?”
She nods. “Just get it out. I don’t want to look.”
20
PHANTOM AUDIENCE
WE HEAD INTO THE BATHROOM, Dubbs and I, and I’m careful snipping the threads to her catheter and drawing it out. I show her the tiny scar where I took a similar catheter out of myself, and I promise hers will heal, too. Then, very calmly, I show her my port lump in my chest. When she discovers she has one, too, she freaks out again, and we have a very bad half hour. Eventually, we put a Band-Aid over her port lump, and she makes me put one over mine, too. She’s teary-eyed and anxious, but she agrees to try to be brave, and we’re able to make it out of the bathroom.
In Lavinia’s room, Dubbs changes into the blue shirt I found in Linus’s duffel. It’s the length of a minidress on her, and she layers it with the sailboat pajama top. She’s all skinny legs and knees, but I can tell by the way she twists and models in front of the mirror that she’s feeling a little better. I exchange my rain-soaked sweatshirt and pajama bottoms for a red sweater and my old scrubs pants, which are now practically dry.
When we return to the living room, I see Linus has changed, too, and his shorts and a gray shirt look comfortable. His knees make me smile. He has noodles boiling for mac ’n’ cheese, and I move around him, gathering bowls and silverware to set the table on the crate by the couch. As I pour water in three mugs, the simple, normal activity feels sort of homey. Dubbs gets busy folding paper towels into triangles for napkins.
“What is this place, anyway?” Dubbs says.
I don’t want to scare her, but I promised I’d tell her everything, so I start back with how I went to the boxcars and found our family gone. I tell her how her secret note led me to Lavinia, and how I ended up in the vault of dreamers under Grisly where I found her. Watching Dubbs all along, I’m wary for any sign of fear, but she takes in the story as if the events were all one step removed from her. “You don’t remember anything from being in the vault?” I ask.
She climbs on the couch beside me. “No, and I’m glad. When can I get my port out again?”
“Soon,” I say. “As soon as we find Ma and Larry. Now, what can you tell me about them? When’s the last time you saw them?”
Her eyebrows lift in surprised discovery. “At Grisly,” she says. “I didn’t know where we were, but that has to be it.”
I feel a jolt of eagerness. Linus comes around from the kitchen to listen.
“What do you mean? How do you know?” I ask Dubbs.
“I saw the stores. A row of stores,” she says. “I couldn’t see much because it was dark, but I looked out of the truck and I saw this row of colorful stores. I thought it was a fake mall or something.”
“Were Ma and Larry with you then?”
She shakes her head. “No. They were gone. First the guys took out Daddy. He was still asleep. Then they came back a little later for Ma, and she was still asleep, too. I was looking for a chance to run away, but I couldn’t get out. They locked the door.”
“How many guys? Do you know what they looked like?” Linus asks.
“There were two guys. They had masks on the whole time,” she says.