Sammy laughed. I don’t think I’d heard my brother laugh since our mother died. It startled me, like finding a lake in the middle of a desert.
“Cassie called you a bitch,” Sam informed Ben, in case he missed it.
Ben ignored him. “We waited here for him and now we’re trapped here because of him. Do what you want, Sullivan. In the morning, I’m out of here.”
“Me too!” Sams said.
Ben got up, leaned on the side of the bed for a minute to catch his breath, then hobbled to the door. Sam trailed after him, and I didn’t try to stop either one of them. What would be the point? Ben cracked the door and called softly to Dumbo not to shoot him—he was coming out to help. Then Evan and I were alone.
I sat on the bed Ben had just abandoned. It was still warm from his body. I grabbed Sammy’s bear and pulled it into my lap.
“Can you hear me?” I asked—Evan, not the bear. “Guess we’re even now, huh? You shoot me in the knee; I shoot you in the knee. You see me butt naked; I see you butt naked. You pray over me; I—”
The room swam out of focus. I took Bear and popped Evan in the chest with it.
“And what was with that ridiculous jacket you were wearing? The Pinheads, that’s about right. That nails it.” I hit him again. “Pinhead.” Again. “Pinhead.” Again. “And now you’re going to check out on me? Now?”
His lips moved and a word leaked out slowly, like air escaping from a tire.
“Mayfly.”
33
HIS EYES OPENED. When I recalled writing about their warm, melted chocolateness, something in me went gah. Why did he have this knees-to-jelly effect on me? That wasn’t me. Why did I let him kiss and cuddle and generally mope around after me like a forlorn little lost alien puppy? Who was this guy? From what warped version of reality did he transport into my own personal warped version of reality? None of it fit. None of it made sense. Falling in love with me might be like me falling in love with a cockroach, but what do you call my reaction to him? What’s that called?
“If you weren’t dying and all, I’d tell you to go to hell.”
“I’m not dying, Cassie.” Fluttery lids. Sweaty face. Shaky voice.
“Okay, then go to hell. You left me, Evan. In the dark, just like that, and then you blew up the ground beneath me. You could have killed all of us. You abandoned me right when—”
“I came back.”
He reached out his hand. “Don’t touch me.” None of your creepy Vulcan mind-meld tricks.
“I kept my promise,” he whispered.
Well, what snarky comeback did I have for that? A promise was what brought me to him in the beginning. Again I was struck by how really weird it was that he was where I had been and I was where he had been. His promise for mine. My bullet for his. Down to stripping each other na**d because there’s no choice; clinging to modesty in the age of the Others is like sacrificing a goat to make it rain.
“You almost got shot in the head, moron,” I told him. “It didn’t occur to you to just shout up the stairs, ‘Hey, it’s me! Hold your fire!’?”
He shook his head. “Too risky.”
“Oh, right. Much more risky than chancing your head getting blown off. Where’s Teacup? Where’s Poundcake?”
He shook his head again. Who?
“The little girl who took off down the highway. The big kid who chased after her. You must have seen them.”
Now he nodded. “North.”
“Well, I know which direction they went . . .”
“Don’t go after them.”
That brought me up short. “What do you mean?”
“It isn’t safe.”
“Nowhere is safe, Evan.”
His eyes were rolling back in his head. He was passing out. “There’s Grace.”
“What did you say? Grace? As in ‘Amazing Grace’ or what? What’s that mean, ‘There’s grace’?”
“Grace,” he murmured, and then he slipped away.
34
I STAYED WITH HIM till dawn. Sitting with him like he sat with me in the old farmhouse. He brought me to that place against my will and then my will brought him to this place, and maybe that meant we sort of owned each other. Or owed each other. Anyway, no debt is ever fully repaid, not really, not the ones that really matter. You saved me, he said, and back then I didn’t understand what I had saved him from. That was before he told me the truth about who he was, and afterward I thought he meant I had saved him from that whole human genocide, mass-murderer thing. Now I was thinking he didn’t mean I saved him from anything, but for something. The tricky part, the unanswerable part, the part that scared the crap out of me, was what that something might be.
He moaned in his sleep. His fingers clawed at the covers. Delirious. Been there and done that, too, Evan. I took his hand. Burned and bruised and broken, and I had wondered what took him so long to find me? He must have crawled here. His hand was hot; his face shone with sweat. For the first time it occurred to me that Evan Walker might die—so soon, too, after rising from the dead.
“You’re going to live,” I told him. “You have to live. Promise, Evan. Promise me you’re going to live. Promise me.”
I slipped a little. Tried not to. Couldn’t help it:
“That’ll complete the circle, then we’re done; we’re both done, me and you. You shot me and I lived. I shot you and you live. See? That’s how it works. Ask anybody. Plus the fact that you’re Mr. Ten-Centuries-Old Superbeing destined to save us pitiful humans from the intergalactic swarm. That’s your job. What you were born to do. Or bred to. Whatever. You know, as plans to conquer the world go, yours has been pretty sucky. Almost a year into it and we’re still here, and who’s the one flat on his back like a bug with drool on his chin?”