“Rope?” Doc echoed blankly.
“For the parasite. Kyle sent me out here to secure it.”
My muscles contracted involuntarily; my hand gripped Walter’s fingers too tightly, and he whimpered. I tried to force it to relax while I kept my eyes on Brandt’s hard face. He was waiting for Doc, expectant.
“You’re here to secure Wanda?” Doc said, his voice hard again. “And what makes you think that’s necessary?”
“Come on, Doc. Don’t be stupid. You’ve got some big vents in here, and a lot of reflective metal.” Brandt gestured to a file cabinet against the far wall. “You let your attention wander for half a minute, and it’ll be flashing signals to that Seeker.”
I sucked in a shocked breath; it was loud in the still room.
“See?” Brandt said. “Guessed its plan in one.”
I wanted to bury myself under a boulder to hide from the bulging, relentless eyes of my Seeker, yet he imagined I wanted to guide her in. Bring her here to kill Jamie, Jared, Jeb, Ian… I felt like gagging.
“You can go, Brandt,” Doc said in an icy tone. “I will keep an eye on Wanda.”
Brandt raised one eyebrow. “What happened to you guys? To you and Ian and Trudy and the rest? It’s like you’re all hypnotized. If your eyes weren’t right, I’d have to wonder…”
“Go ahead and wonder all you want, Brandt. But get out while you’re doing it.”
Brandt shook his head. “I’ve got a job to do.”
Doc walked toward Brandt, stopping when he was between Brandt and me. He folded his arms across his chest.
“You’re not going to touch her.”
The throbbing helicopter blades sounded in the distance. We were all very still, not breathing, until they faded.
Brandt shook his head when it was quiet again. He didn’t speak; he just went to the desk and picked up Doc’s chair. He carried it to the wall by the file cabinet, slammed it to the ground, and then sat down hard, making the metal legs squeal against the stone. He leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and stared at me. A vulture waiting for a dying hare to stop moving.
Doc’s jaw tightened, making a little popping noise.
“Gladys,” Walter muttered, surfacing from his dazed sleep. “You’re here.”
Too nervous to speak with Brandt watching, I just patted his hand. His clouded eyes searched my face, seeing features that weren’t there.
“It hurts, Gladdie. It hurts a lot.”
“I know,” I whispered. “Doc?”
He was already there, the brandy in hand. “Open up, Walter.”
The sound of the helicopter thumped quietly, far away but still much too close. Doc flinched, and a few drops of brandy splattered on my arm.
It was a horrible day. The worst of my life on this planet, even including my first day in the caves and the last hot, dry day in the desert, hours from death.
The helicopter circled and circled. Sometimes more than an hour would pass, and I would think it was finally over. Then the sound would come back, and I would see the Seeker’s obstinate face in my head, her protruding eyes scouring the blank desert for some sign of humans. I tried to will her away, concentrating hard on my memories of the desert’s featureless, colorless plain, as if I could somehow make sure she saw nothing else, as if I could bore her into leaving.
Brandt never took his suspicious stare off of me. I could always feel it, though I rarely looked at him. It got a little better when Ian came back with both breakfast and lunch. He was all dirty from packing in case of an evacuation—whatever that meant. Did they have anywhere to go? Ian scowled so hard he looked like Kyle when Brandt explained in clipped phrases why he was there. Then Ian dragged another empty cot beside mine, so that he could sit in Brandt’s line of sight and block his view.
The helicopter, Brandt’s distrustful watch, these were not really so bad. On an ordinary day—if there was really such a thing anymore—either one of these might have seemed agonizing. Today, they were nothing.
By noon, Doc had given Walter the last of the brandy. It seemed like only minutes later that Walter was writhing, moaning, and gasping for breath. His fingers bruised and chafed mine, but if I ever pulled away, his moans turned to shrill screams. I ducked out once to use the latrine; Brandt followed me, which made Ian feel like he had to come, too. By the time we got back—after nearly running the whole way—Walter’s screams no longer sounded human. Doc’s face was hollow with echoed agony. Walter quieted after I spoke to him for a moment, letting him think his wife was near. It was an easy lie, a kind one. Brandt made little noises of irritation, but I knew that he was wrong to be upset. Nothing mattered beside Walter’s pain.
The whimpers and the writhing continued, though, and Brandt paced back and forth at the other end of the room, trying to be as far from the sound as possible.
Jamie came looking for me, bringing food enough for four, when the light was growing orangey overhead. I wouldn’t let him stay; I made Ian take him back to the kitchen to eat, made Ian promise to watch him all night so he wouldn’t sneak back here. Walter couldn’t help shrieking when his twisting moved his broken leg, and the sound of it was nearly unbearable. Jamie shouldn’t have this night burned into his memory the way it would surely be burned into Doc’s and mine. Perhaps Brandt’s as well, though he did what he could to ignore Walter, plugging his ears and humming a dissonant tune.
Doc did not try to distance himself from Walter’s hideous suffering; instead, he suffered with him. Walter’s cries carved deep lines in Doc’s face, like claws raking his skin.