“It didn’t work for Moira either.”
The air around him seemed to thin. “What?”
“She gave her blood to Prudence, Zac.”
Prudence. Zac shut his eyes. Moira’s daughter had been ten or eleven when cholera took her, so being young didn’t help. “She never told me.”
“I was with her when she did it. She could never talk about it after.”
“Yeah.” Maybe he could understand that.
“What’s this got to do with Finn and Cady’s people? You think Doc used—?”
“Nothing. This is something else. A mortal.”
“Like you needed one more thing to overinvest in. Who is it?”
“A kid I know. Eleven years old. Cancer.”
“You want to take chances with a kid?”
Not one of them understood. “I think he’s sick again. Really sick, dying, maybe gone already.”
“You think? You don’t know?”
“Forget it. Just forget it.”
“Hold on a minute, you idiot.”
Zac bowed over, free hand gripping his knee. Hope drained out of him like blood, left him weary deep in his bones, in his cells maybe, where the serum continued giving its nontransferable gift.
“You’re close to this kid.”
“I know, big mistake. The fool who can’t walk away, who latches onto mortals like—”
“Shut up.”
“It’s what Colm told me.”
“Screw Colm. If there’s a hell, I hope he knows he’s burning.”
The words cut the air like razor blades. Zac felt sliced by them too, but in a way that released him from something he hadn’t known was binding him. He stood upright. He grasped a long breath, more able to now than when he’d hung up on Cady.
“Don’t you ever assume I’ll say what he said. Don’t you dare.”
“Yeah.” Zac’s voice was hollowed out. Humbled, as he deserved. “I hear you.”
“I’m sorry about the kid.” Simon ended the sentence there. No however, get over it. No however anything.
Zac nodded at the ground. “Yeah.”
“If I thought my blood might work, I’d give it. If I thought we could do it without sentencing him to an immortal life in an immature body. I know you’d want to try it anyway, and we could argue about that if there were a chance. But there’s no sense arguing, because there’s no chance. I’m sorry.”
Simon hadn’t apologized to him this many times for anything in the last century and a half. “Thanks, man.”
“Sure.”
He hung up. He tried Nate’s phone again. Maybe it had been dropped into a toilet or a lake or something. Maybe Nate didn’t know Lucas had asked Zac to call. Maybe the kid wanted to talk about weight training techniques.
Voice mail.
Zac got into his car. Drove laps around the outskirts of town until the answer finally came. The last shot he had.
Doc.
The man had a cure for the serum. He must have more of the serum itself. Zac only had to convince him to give a dose of it away. And if he’d penned an apology to Cady yesterday, he should still be in town. Should also be aware of Zac’s presence here. After all, whose face had been on the news lately linked to an impossible survival story?
Problem was Doc still didn’t want to be found.
Maybe Zac could offer something to make exposure worth it. Doc was a scientist. He’d know Zac should be dead, serum notwithstanding. Bartering was high on Zac’s skill list. He would exchange details of his survival for the serum. He’d make them up if he had to; and he would have to. If that failed, he could demand it as part of the restitution owed. Convenient of Doc to acknowledge his guilty conscience.
Zac turned the car toward his apartment and his laptop. He didn’t maintain social media apps on his phone, didn’t want to be tied to them, but from his computer he could reach out. Surely Doc would see a public post from Zac.
Yes. This could work. He could still save his boy.
NINETEEN
Zac had been tagged more than seven hundred times in the last hour, which was rather excessive, but he ignored the notifications tab and clicked instead to compose a new public post. Good thing he couldn’t die, because Simon was going to kill him for this.
The wording had to be right. Plenty of people would pop up online claiming to be whomever Zac Wilson said he wanted to talk to. He’d have a lot of filtering to do, but he’d know the real Doc when he found him. He started typing.
If you see this, Doc, I want to talk. On behalf of Anders. Contact me.
No one but Doc Leon would know Zac’s birth name, and without a surname no stranger could dig up his original mortal self. This assuming traces still existed of Anders Eklund. He stared at the words for a moment. He tried to predict any reason he might regret this later, but it seemed the only chance Lucas had.
He posted it.
Now to check out who on earth was chattering about him. This traffic didn’t match that of his original rocketing into the public’s notice after the airing of Warrior USA, or that of a month ago when he fell. But it was runner-up to those two events for sure. He clicked.
A picture of him. Grainy, a phone zoom. Wearing the clothes he was wearing now, gripping the edge of a bookshelf to stay on his feet, mouth open and eyes glazed. The caption read, He went bat crazy in the middle of a store where I was shopping. Owner had to ask us all to leave. Don’t want to speculate, but something’s weird with this guy.
Zac scrolled down, and a dull pain bloomed in his chest.
I’ll speculate for you. That’s drugs. Totally 100% drugs. SMH. I really thought Zac Wilson was one of the cool guys.
Agree with @Running4Princess, looks like he’s high to me. Wow, so, that’s really disappointing.
That must have been kind of scary, @JameyZ! Glad he wasn’t violent or anything but whoa.
Maybe it isn’t drugs, you know? Maybe he’s still dealing with the Marble Canyon thing. But dude, go get some help if you’re losing it in public.
LOL @MissTeaMorning did you see this? still want to have his babies? LOL sorry gurrl.
There’s more to this, ppl. Come on, it’s Zac. Something’s up and he needs our support. What kind of fans are we going to be? #StandByZac
@WinnieTheBoo If he wants support, he needs to tell us what’s going on. It’s been two hours and there’s been no response from him whatsoever.
It went on for seven hundred tags. For every awww and poor guy, that’s sad were two or three others calling him a wreck, an embarrassment, a washed-up flavor of the month whose time in the spotlight was thankfully ending. He ought to stop reading, but he couldn’t. A few people upbraided the poster of the picture for publicizing it. A few said they were praying and hoped Zac would feel better soon, as if the picture suggested the flu or allergies. A few said they would be Zac Wilson fans until the day they died whether he was on drugs or not.
This is so weird, you guys, I saw him in town the other day and he said he was on a hiatus. Now I’m wondering what that means. What if there’s something really wrong with our Zac? A row of terrified, weeping, and heart-eyed emojis followed the post.
Zac stared at the user’s profile picture. It was the selfie he’d taken with the girl from the bakery.
He couldn’t swallow past the stricture in his throat. They had caught a glimpse past the mask, and this was what they did with it. Assumed, mocked, trivialized, disowned. No, not all of them, but so many of them. They wanted the Zac who signed their shirts and photos, who posed and grinned and made them feel at ease. Made them happy. They had no use for the person with flaws and fears like their own.
Since he’d been scrolling, another eleven mentions had pinged in his notifications. He jumped to the bottom.
Did you guys see this, he’s looking for a doctor?
I volunteer as tribute!
No for real what if it’s about that pic from earlier?
Who’s Anders? Anybody know? Anybody? C’mon, Wilsonite
s, who is Anders???
@ZacWilson Ignore these stupids, I can hook you up
He shut the laptop and pushed it away. His stomach was a hard, burning knot.
He should delete the post. But he couldn’t. Lucas needed Doc’s response.
He paced his apartment room by room, twitchy agitation growing in him. He cartwheeled down the hallway and moved into a handstand at the doorway of his bedroom. When he lowered his feet to the floor and stood upright, his humiliation cracked open, and the hurt at its center spilled through him. He shuffled to the kitchen and sank to the floor in a corner, knees up, forehead resting on them.
He sat that way for an hour, and when he got up the clock had barely ticked past five. This was going to be a long evening. A long night.
He could go climb the dunes. He’d done so in the dark plenty of times since that first night climb with David. But his body felt weighted. Zac Wilson, stuntman and daredevil and gymnast, couldn’t force his limbs to lift him from his seat on the floor.
After a time he got up to check his phone, though he knew it hadn’t rung. No calls, no texts. He opened the computer, and his social media accounts were all exploding with new notifications. That picture was getting around fast. His gut burned. Coward. Broken, scared joke of a man. Not a warrior; Connie had known before she met him.
To Colm too, he’d been a joke. Someone to mock. Someone to fool. Someone to use.
But he could do this. He opened the thread created beneath his last post. And watched.
The comments wrapped around him like barbed wire. Even the kind ones. He watched them add up, reading every one. The sun set in the window over the kitchen sink, and still he read.
Zac jolted up from the floor, and his computer skidded a few inches as his knee bumped it. He’d fallen asleep. He pushed to his feet and found the clock. The digital numbers blurred until he blinked a few times. 7:38 p.m. He’d slept over two hours.
He snatched up his laptop and checked the thread. New notifications: 264. He groaned.
Okay, fine. He had work to do.
A pounding came at his door, and then his phone vibrated with a new text. Simon.
LET ME IN. I SEE YOUR CAR.
What? Zac strode to his front door, which opened not onto a porch but into the apartment foyer. He peered into the spyhole. Nobody there. Yep, that would be Simon, standing to one side as if he were still a cop and Zac’s place were the residence of a suspect. He shook his head, unlocked the door, and swung it open.
“Hey,” Simon said as he stepped inside.
“Uh, hey.”
“I’ve been knocking for five minutes.”
“Sorry. Was asleep.”
Simon wandered the living room, then the kitchen, then stood at one end of the hallway to survey the bathroom and bedroom from a distance. “Cozy place.”
“I’m cool with it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Yeah, definitely Cop Simon. The guy would be a pit bull with a bone, jaws clamped until death on whatever problem he was gnawing at the moment.
“Simon, what are you doing here?”
Simon grunted, crossed back into the living room, and sat on the couch, stretching his arms over the back. He appraised Zac with an old look. A look from the days when Zac still called him on bad nights.
A dangerous look. It had always made Zac feel not that he wanted to talk but that talking was inevitable, so he might as well get on with it. David had waited him out at the bookstore, would have sat in silence as long as necessary. Simon didn’t wait. Simon nudged and needled until you spilled your guts hoping he would go away.
“Simon, what are you doing?”
“You’re the one who asked me to show up. Be part of the family crisis and all that.”
“In Missouri. Four days ago.”
“Couldn’t get to Missouri. Figured you could use me anywhere.” His teeth flashed in a grin.
“Okay.”
Simon nodded as if that settled it. Right.
“Well, we know Doc is in town. Or was yesterday. He left a note for Cady at their hotel.”
“Oh?”
“Asking for forgiveness.”
Simon’s eyes lost focus as he mulled the puzzle. “Interesting.”
“Not what we expected.”
“No, I expected a threat. Instead he kills four of them and then apologizes to the survivors. He’s all over the place.”
“Maybe before we age out we get senile.”
“Huh.”
Then Simon sat in silence broken only when he began to crack his knuckles. Zac continued to watch him. At some point the guy would say more. When he was good and ready.
“What’d you find when you went to their homes?”
“He buried James and Anna. Family plot. Respectful. We went to Cady’s and packed a suitcase for her, brought her some clothes. No sign of forced entry there. No sign of anything. The neighbors were informed there was a tragic accident, so they won’t expect to see Anna or James; the other two lived in California and only came to visit. Really there wasn’t much, man. I guess the graves confirmed we have four dead, not two.”
“Okay.”
“There was an old couple Finn went to see. In on their secret. I kept mine.”
Simon folded his arms and leaned back in his seat. Nodded Zac on. Shoot, he could interrogate without saying a word. Zac rolled his eyes. I know your tactics, moron.
Simon nodded. Darn straight.
Zac sighed. Whatever. “They believed that James and Anna accepted the serum. Informed consent. Cady’s now the only holdout on that.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope. Well. A somewhat unrelated matter.”
He got up and retrieved his laptop from the kitchen. He opened the thread, scrolled to the top to view his original post, and handed the computer to Simon.
“What is …?” Simon read a few lines down. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I had to try it. For Lucas.”
“You used your old name on a public …” His eyes widened as he kept reading. “You have over a thousand comments on this and you posted it four hours ago.”
“Perks of popularity.” The words came out flat.
Simon didn’t seem to hear him. His finger was moving down the touchpad, his eyes scanning the words that Zac had absorbed over the last few hours. Zac got up and folded an afghan from the back of the chair. An already folded afghan. At last Simon’s eyes met his, grayer in their coldness.
“They turned on you like a pack of dogs.”
Zac smoothed his palm over the afghan and swallowed the sour lump in his throat. “Some of them were concerned. Genuine.”
“Too few.”
“Aren’t you going to complain about the post that set them off?”
“First I want to know what picture they’re talking about.”
“No, you don’t.” Should have thought of that, though, because Simon was tapping and reading, tapping and reading.
The moment he found the photo was betrayed by a faint inhale and a fainter curse.
“That’s a decent summary.” Simon would know it all now. “Look, what matters is Doc might respond to my post. Might have a way to save Lucas. I have to monitor the thread as long as it’s active in case he—”
“He made a cure. Before he was remorseful, he was eradicating us. If he had any of the original serum, he probably destroyed it.”
The simple logic seared Zac’s brain. His legs folded and dropped him into the big stuffed chair across from Simon. “I … I didn’t think …”
“Of course you didn’t.” But no judgment resided in Simon’s tone. “A child you love might be dying. And you’ve heard nothing?”
He shook his head.
“So you posted this thing to Doc and you still don’t know if the kid’s even sick.”
“I’m not going to wait for confirmation when every hour could matter.”
“Right, okay. I don’t expect you to be rati
onal about any of this. If he still wants to take us out, maybe this will help us catch him.”
Simon pushed to his feet, folded his arms, widened his stance. It was his Action Hero pose, which Zac had ribbed him about for the last hundred years, the nickname evolving to reflect the slang of the times.
“I missed dinner,” Simon said, “and you probably did too.”
The suggestion alone prompted a growl in Zac’s stomach. He’d ignored lunch as well, hadn’t even snacked. He nodded.
“I passed a Mexican restaurant just off the highway, maybe ten minutes.”
Of course Simon picked Mexican, but the last thing Zac had energy for was a restaurant debate. He pushed to his feet.
He broke his rule about social media apps on his phone. Installing and logging in took only a few seconds. Simon was scrutinizing him again, so he shrugged.
“So I can check the comments while I’m out of the house.”
“Best thing you could do right now is step away from that for an hour or two.”
“Not if Doc responds in the next hour.”
Simon sighed. “Suit yourself.”
Zac’s eyelids were heavy as he drove up to Salsarita’s. He got the enchilada plate and Simon got his beloved beef tacos. While they waited for their food, Zac checked the comments on the Leon post, then checked once more when the food came. Simon made no remark. Nothing posted could be Doc, though several replies hoped Zac would believe they came from a doctor who was “deeply concerned about Anders” and “prepared to help him in any way.” The rest were expressions of best wishes or sharp mockery.
He and Simon ate in a silence that chipped away at the barrier between Zac and exhaustion. They were waiting for the check when Simon spoke for the first time since they’d ordered.
“Moira.”
“Yeah?” Zac rested his arms on the table.
“Have you talked to her?”
“I’ve tried every contact I know. The phone numbers are disconnected and the emails are undeliverable.”
Simon’s Adam’s apple dipped. “Same.”
“You’re looking for her.”
“It’s been futile so far, which I expected. But I had to try this time.”
If ever there had been a time to track her down despite her wishes, this was it. Zac kept emailing, kept calling, though he didn’t know what he’d say the next time he saw her. They fell into quiet again as they drove back to the apartment.
From Sky to Sky Page 15