“Just get the door. Watch her head.”
I pass out again, and when I resurface next, it’s to a painful prickling that burns all over my skin. I’m shivering wildly. They’ve put me in a bathtub to thaw like a Thanksgiving turkey. My lower tube has a new stopper in it. The port in my chest looks horribly foreign. I don’t understand my skinny, wasted body. All I can do is stare at the faucet and the water valves, the old-fashioned, knobby kind that squeak when one of the women turns them. They’re asking me questions, but whenever I try to unclench my jaw to answer, I chatter too much.
“It’s all right,” one of them says. “You’re going to be okay. Some frostbite, but you’ll survive.”
I lift trembling fingers to push my hair out of my eyes and smell a trace of cat food. Perfect, I think, and go off in a weird, sniveling laugh. Eventually they dry me off, put me in clean sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and settle me on a couch under a pile of blankets. One of them wraps my wet hair in a towel, and the other brings me a brown mug of warm cocoa to sip. It takes forever for my shivering to stop and the pinpricks of pain to dull into patchy itchiness, and by then, I’m exhausted.
Hiding practically naked in the back of that freezing truck was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Even my hallucination of Linus knew it. But I don’t regret it now. I survived and I’m free.
I glance around the quiet living room. On a prominent shelf stands a framed photo of a smiling woman in camouflage with her arms around my rescuers, who are obviously her daughters. A series of moths and butterflies, framed in pairs, hangs behind a rocker. Their bright colors stand out against the dullness of fading wallpaper, sagging upholstery, and a wayward crack in the ceiling. Each surface is meticulously clean. I’m the biggest mess this place has seen in years.
“I’m going to call her in,” one of the sisters says.
“Don’t, Portia. The police will only screw it up. Ten to one we’ll end up accused of something.”
“But she’s not our problem,” Portia says. “I don’t like the look of those ports. What if she has something contagious?”
“She’s not wearing a hospital band. Doesn’t she seem familiar to you?”
“Not really.”
“I think she’s somebody.”
The sisters consider me from the other side of the coffee table. They have similar heart-shaped faces and wide eyes, but the one called Portia is heavier and older I’d guess by a few years. The younger one is close to my age. She has a thin, long-legged build and nicely done nails. She inspects the gown I came in, and then she takes a sniff inside the bag I wore on my foot. She passes it to Portia, who smells it, too.
“Weed,” Portia says, glancing to me. “Are you sick?”
“It’s not mine,” I say. My voice is husky, but I can talk. “Thanks for taking me in. I’m not contagious or anything.”
“What’s your name?” Portia asks.
I don’t want to say, but I can’t answer their generosity with rudeness, either. “Rosie,” I say.
The younger sister reaches for her tablet. “I knew it,” she says. “You’re that girl from The Forge Show. The one that’s missing. Rosie Sinclair.”
“Who?” Portia asks.
“You remember. The crazy one. Oh, my gosh!” The young one types quickly and then passes the tablet to Portia, who looks up at me quizzically.
“That’s you?” she asks, and turns the tablet toward me to show a shot of me from Forge. It lists a reward that would tempt anybody.
I nod. “Please don’t call anybody.”
“But your family’s looking for you,” the younger one says. “Tons of people are. They’re worried about you. Where have you been?”
“In hell,” I say. And then I laugh because I’m actually not exaggerating. “What’s the date today?”
“It’s Sunday, March 6, 2067,” the young one says.
Four months. I curl my hands over my skinny knees. No wonder I’m so thin and weak. For months I’ve been subsisting on whatever nutrients came in my port. I lift my hand to the lamp, and I swear I can see the light glowing through my flesh.
It makes me angry.
Portia sets down the tablet. “Okay, listen. You’ve been through something horrendous. We get that,” she says. “We’d like to help, but we obviously have to call somebody. You’ve got problems way out of our league.”
“But of course we’ll help you,” the other interrupts. She smiles at me. “I’m Jenny, and this is Portia. I can’t get over this. This is huge. Mom’s going to go bonkers when she finds out. And we saved you! We’re heroes!”
“Hold on. We need a plan,” Portia says. “Where’d you get in our truck? At the diner?”
“Yes,” I say. “Please don’t call anybody yet. I need to think.”
“Where were you before that?” Portia asks.
The Onar Clinic, Ian called it, but I don’t know what to say. I’m not sure how much of my story I should tell them. “I don’t know exactly,” I say.
“Were you, like, kidnapped?” Jenny asks. “I knew it. I always knew that dean from your school was evil. Don’t worry. You’re not going back. Does anybody else know where you are?”
I shake my head.
“Then you’re safe here,” Jenny says. “We’ll look after you.”
“We can’t just keep her here,” Portia says. “She needs a doctor.”
“No, I don’t,” I say. “No doctors.”
“What about your ports? What do they mean? What if they get infected?” Portia says.
“I’ll look them up online and figure out what to do with them,” I say.
“You’re joking,” Portia says.
“No, I’m not,” I say. “I’m not ready to go public. If you report me, the police will start an investigation. They might take me to a hospital at first, but I won’t have any choice about where I end up. Please, I just need to rest for a few days and figure out what to do. Let me stay here. I won’t be any trouble. You can call in for the reward then, okay? I’ll tell everyone you saved me. Jenny’s right. You’ll be heroes.”
Portia leans back, considering.
“You know what Mom would do,” Jenny says.
“She’d call in the police right now,” Portia says.
“Exactly.”
For some reason, this works on Portia, but not the way I expect.
She nods slowly. “All right,” Portia says. “For now, you can stay. But if you get an infection, we’re taking you in.”
Jenny smiles and pulls her feet up on her chair. “Mom’s a stickler for rules. It gets annoying.”
“Thanks,” I say. I settle deeper into the couch and tuck the blanket closer against my cheek. “I don’t suppose you have any ketchup,” I say.
Jenny steps out and returns a moment later with a red plastic bottle, a small blue bowl, and a spoon. “How much?” she asks.
“A lot,” I say.