“Contusions on both sides of your spine. You might have fractured a rib here too.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you have ice at the ready?”
He nodded toward the kitchen. “Always. Stunt injuries.”
She felt each rib beneath the bruises, front and back, and he kept as quiet as he could.
“Two fractures, but they’re not displaced. They should heal fine.”
He managed a nod, still catching his breath.
Cady got up, returned with a frozen gel pack, and offered it to him. He winced at the cold as he held it to his side, but it brought a slow relief to the sharpest of the pain.
“Do you want help with whatever’s bleeding?” She gestured to his hip.
“It stopped. I’ll deal with it later.”
She gave him a dubious squint. “I’ve seen worse. And more.”
“I don’t need stitches.” And wouldn’t be getting them even if he did. “It’s fine.”
“Moving on, then: Motrin. When did you eat last?”
“Breakfast yesterday.”
“Your blood sugar must be bottomed out.”
He couldn’t make himself care.
Simon wandered into the living room and sat in the chair across from them. “We can go out for food after you’ve slept a bit.”
Go out. The girl who’d taken the picture at the bookstore—she might snap another shot of him. This time he would look adrenaline-fried and exhausted. Anyone he ran into might recognize him right now, the way those posts had been gathering notice yesterday. Anyone might wonder if he were high or shiftless or a fraud.
He was a coward, because he couldn’t face their judgment. Not today.
“I’ll just … order delivery later. Or something.”
For a moment, Simon’s frown seemed offended. Then his face lit with a deep understanding and he nodded.
“Dinner in. Sounds good.”
“You guys don’t have to stay.” Zac kept the ice pack against his ribs and lay back on the couch. He had to find Rachel, but sleep had found him. He was powerless to hold it off.
“Whatever you say, buddy.”
Simon’s voice faded in Zac’s ears, but nonetheless he recognized the sarcasm. When he woke up, his family would still be here, and then he’d tell them everything.
TWENTY-FOUR
Once or twice, he surfaced briefly from sleep. Their voices came to him hushed, thoughtful. Sometimes in the room with him, sometimes not. The apartment was too small not to hear them wherever they were. Strangers cautious with each other; longevites instantly connected. When he fully woke at last, he lay quietly, eyes closed, not ready to talk yet. The ice pack had gone lukewarm against his skin, and the ribs were stabbing again in a way that didn’t let him feign deep breathing, but he didn’t have to. Simon and Cady were in the kitchen.
“Most accident-prone human being alive.”
“I watched the canyon footage.”
“A week after that, he got himself stabbed by a crazed fan.”
“Well, that’s not an accident exactly—”
“And now here we are a few weeks later, and that’s just the last month of his life. You want to talk about the last hundred and fifty years, I’ve got stories.”
A quiet laugh. “But they’re his stories, so you won’t tell them.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. When I’m the one who patched up his reckless hide, I think I get to tell my version.”
“Hmm. I like this concept. It would give me a world of blackmail material on Finn.”
“There you go.”
“So what can you tell me? About him.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“Should be all you need to know.”
All she needed to know? A stone seemed to sink from Zac’s chest to the pit of his stomach.
“Maybe it would be,” Cady said, her voice somehow both softer and firmer, “if I thought you meant it.”
“I mean it. One hundred percent.”
Zac’s fingers curled loosely into his hands. He should get up and go in there so they’d talk about something else.
“Okay, I don’t know you guys yet at all, so maybe I’m way off base. But I don’t think you’d be here if Zac were nothing to you but a careless fool.”
“Well, he’s my brother. No matter what else he is.”
The deepest truth between him and Simon. It shrank the stone inside but didn’t disintegrate it altogether.
“But what else is he?”
“He’s got the caution of a toddler and the humility of a peacock.”
“And?”
“And he invests himself into everything. A friend’s personal crisis, a chocolate chip pancake—to Zac, everything is equally vital and equally vivid.”
A clanking of mugs, and then one of them was pouring coffee. The scent wafted out to Zac, but he was too hungry to enjoy it.
“I think that’s admirable,” Cady said.
She did?
Simon made a scoffing sound.
“No, I really do. After we’ve lived so long, how does he still do it? I know I don’t anymore. I’d like to get some of it back.”
“Hang around him long enough and you’ll see him tear up over the beauty of nature.”
Cady’s quiet laugh warmed Zac as he lay there. “I wouldn’t mind a bit, for the record.”
“Females usually don’t.”
“Envious?”
“Not a chance.”
“But see, you’re proving my point. He’s much more than an idiot.”
This stretch of quiet lasted longer. At last Simon said, “We’re just different, you know.”
“I get it. Holly was a woman of pedicures and designer purses. She designed greeting cards for Hallmark. Give me hiking boots and a backpack; give me a neglected house to flip. My favorite part of the work is hands-on restoration.”
Like David and his bookstore. The zeal in her voice rang strong.
“But even when we disagreed about the big things, which we did often, Holly was family.”
“Yeah.”
“Her … absence … their absence.” Her voice broke. “They saw so much history, it’s surreal to think those memories have passed away from the world. But more than that, they were a piece of me. For so long.”
“I hear that. Zac …”
Zac nearly sat up, but Simon wasn’t addressing him. He lay still and waited for the man to finish the thought. The stone inside him had eroded to a tiny pebble now.
“You’ll keep this to yourself.”
“If you like.”
“He’s the best man I’ve ever known, and that’s a fact.”
“Why should I keep it to myself? A guy should know his brother feels that way about him.”
“He can figure it out.”
“Haven’t we lived long enough for you two to outgrow that taciturn macho thing?”
A grunt. “DNA doesn’t change.”
She gave a soft laugh. “I’m going to call Tiana and see what their ETA is.”
Their … what?
“Great. I’m famished.”
“Want to wake him?”
“When the food gets here. He should sleep as much as he can.”
“Simon …”
“Yeah?”
“I—I didn’t want to pry earlier, but he …”
A sigh. “Now that is his story.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t tell me.”
“Won’t know unless you ask him.”
“I couldn’t. Not yet.”
“Suit yourself.”
A presence entered the room, and then Cady’s voice drifted from the kitchen. “Hi, Tiana, it’s Cady.”
He opened his eyes. Simon was standing across the room from him, gazing out the front window. Zac shifted, and the ice pack slid down his side and dropped to the floor. Simon turned.
“The others are bringing lunch. We got to you around sev
en and it’s a little after eleven now.”
Zac pushed up to a sitting position and tried to wince as little as possible.
“You might want to shower before they get here.” Simon cocked an eyebrow at Zac’s bruised chest and dusty jeans.
“Is Finn coming?”
“Cady said he was.”
“I need to tell them about Rachel.”
Action Hero pose. Simon crossed his arms over his chest and gave Zac the assessing cop stare. “They might not take it well.”
His throat hurt more now than it had when he’d fallen asleep, and his voice sounded like sandpaper. He was so exhausted he wasn’t sure he could handle their reactions right now. All inconsequential details.
“They need to know. Then I’m going after her.” He got to his feet, wobbly but okay. “Crap, she might have gained another three hours’ distance while I was asleep.”
Or taken the cure by now. The thought brought physical pain to his chest. He shook his head against it. He had to work with what he knew, cradle hope as long as he could.
Simon sighed. “Go clean up. Eat something. Then we’ll work the problem.”
He hated the delay, but he did need food. And Simon’s plans were usually reasonable.
Before he stepped into the shower, Zac examined the horizontal slash across his hip. About two inches long, deep enough to scar though he couldn’t see down to bone. He irrigated it with antiseptic and sealed it with two Band-Aids so he wouldn’t have to keep dealing with it. Not that infection would kill him, but it would be a nuisance.
He showered away layers of sweat and grime, fear and flashbacks. He stepped out of the steam feeling clean deep down. His mouth watered and his stomach growled at the smells coming in around the door, and he dressed as quickly as his ribs would allow in jeans and a red zip hoodie. The Band-Aids on his hip had withstood the shower.
When he stepped out into the hall, conversation enveloped him. Tiana spotted him first, came straight to him, and wrapped him in a careful hug. He returned it, keeping protective distance between her and his ribs.
She patted his shoulder the way one might touch a butterfly, and he grinned.
“I’m not going to crumble into dust.”
“Simon told us everything.”
“And made it my fault the floor caved in.”
Her crooked smile didn’t deny it.
“I owe you an apology,” he said. “I was a jerk recently.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yeah. I … ah, if you wouldn’t mind … I would appreciate …”
She waited. Making him say it. Or maybe she didn’t know where he was going with this. Even after the last day and night, the words didn’t want to come. He had a long way to go, if a path did exist for him. A path to being a son again.
Before he could force himself to ask for something he didn’t deserve, Cady called from the kitchen.
“Hey, Tiana.”
Tiana’s eyebrows lifted, her attention remaining on Zac.
Not the time for this conversation. He motioned her into the kitchen and followed her.
“Here,” she said to Cady.
“I’ve distributed most of the sandwiches, but there’s also an order of spaghetti and meatballs.” Cady held up the plastic container, steam obscuring its clear lid, a Sharpie scrawl naming its contents.
“Oh, that’s Zac’s.”
A grin split his face. “Spaghetti, huh?”
“You were asleep; I couldn’t get your order. I went for classic and filling. From this place, it’s more like meatballs with a side of pasta. Their sauce is homemade and delicious, and there should be a breadstick too.”
Cady handed him the container. “Enjoy.”
“Definitely.” He touched Tiana’s shoulder. “Thank you.”
“This talk isn’t done,” she said.
“No.”
“Good.” She took a sandwich from Cady and meandered out to the living room to join the others.
“How do you feel?” Cady said, unwrapping a battered fish sandwich that released the tang of tartar sauce into the air.
“Starved.”
Zac popped open the lid on his meal and dug into one of the takeout bags for a plastic fork. He balanced the container on one hand, twirled the fork into the spaghetti, and tasted a bite. Tiana was right. This was delicious. Then again, at this point, instant ramen would be delicious. Or army rations from the nineteenth century.
Cady was watching him eat. “What about the … well, do you have to deal with an aftermath? When you’ve been trapped that way?”
He gestured to the vaulted ceiling in the living room, the windows in the kitchen that were set close together to create a sort of panorama on that side of the apartment. “Why I picked this place.”
“I see.” She was studying him, looking for something. “I don’t think you’re putting me on.”
Ah. “Too wiped at the moment.”
“So honesty is temporary with you.”
He shifted on his feet and forked a bite of meatball. He’d never thought of it that bluntly before. Not a thing to be known for. “I don’t want it to be temporary.”
“Only you can carry that out.”
He nodded.
She glanced down, stalling with a bite of her sandwich. “Steamroller remarks. I’m famous for them.”
“I’ve made a few lately. Such as yesterday when I called making demands and didn’t bother to explain myself.”
She met his eyes, faint challenge in the set of her shoulders. Yeah, he had offended her with that call. With good reason.
“I’d never try to replace them, Cady.”
Her lips thinned. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
“I know. I should’ve said so.”
She gave him a long look, and something in him, muted by current crises, hoped she found what she was looking for in his face. No smile in either of them today, but at last she nodded.
“Okay,” she said.
He gestured her ahead of him into the living room. David and Simon remained on their feet, and Finn and Tiana had claimed the chairs across from each other. Everyone seemed to be balancing caution and curiosity in varying degrees. The small talk was quiet. Anticipating. They hushed when Zac eased himself onto the sofa.
He looked around at the people who had formed his search party. “So … thanks. Everyone.”
Everyone but Moira. Her absence felt like a hole in the air itself. They were not complete.
“Simon might have told you, I have information.”
Nods around the room.
Zac cradled the spaghetti container in both hands and met their eyes, each in turn. He swallowed the memory of Rachel’s fear-stricken face as he told her he knew what she’d done.
He nodded at Cady, at Finn. “I know who it was.”
“Not Doc?” Finn said.
“Doc is dead.”
The news rippled through the group, rattling them like a gust of wind through exposed leaves. Even Simon. Zac hadn’t mentioned this detail before. David and Simon each took a step back, nearer the wall where they stood, guards over the room, opposite one another. Zac would lay money they’d positioned themselves that way unconsciously. Finn’s and Cady’s faces had gone still and grim, dread in their eyes. Only Tiana looked fully composed, listening and waiting. Her stake in this was less, being mortal, but then again, maybe not. She was watching David, not Zac.
“Doc Leon has a daughter who took the serum. Her name’s Rachel.” At Cady’s surprised inhale, Zac nodded. “The gray-haired girl at the diner. When Doc died, she continued his research.”
For the second time he recounted his encounter with Rachel, how he’d ended up pinned in the barn.
“She’s gone,” he said at last. “Unless we go out and find her.”
“Why would we do that?” Cady had finished her sandwich while Zac was talking, but now she looked sick. “Doc’s daughter killed our family. There. Now we know.”
“And you know she
didn’t intend to kill them.”
“If she’s telling the truth,” Finn said.
“She is.”
“She’s one of us; we’ve all learned to lie.”
“I’m telling you, Rachel isn’t lying.”
“He’s probably right,” Simon said from his corner. “Zac’s been a natural lie detector since I’ve known him. I don’t know how he does it.”
A fact that had caused Simon no small amount of annoyance over the decades. Zac nodded his thanks for the backup and tried not to think about the one person who’d succeeded in lying to him for most of his life.
“All right, say it’s true,” Finn said. “Maybe in a few months, she changes her mind. Stalks Cady in a grocery store and sticks her with a needle.”
“No way. I can’t prove it, but I’m sure.”
Simon stepped out closer to the middle of the room. “So you don’t want to apprehend her for trial.”
“Trial?” Zac said.
“Manslaughter.”
Of course Simon would ask. “She’s not Colm. She’s nothing like Colm.”
Simon made a gesture of acknowledgment. “Hence manslaughter.”
The guy could have mentioned this in the car; no doubt he’d been thinking of it. “Simon, no. This is about putting the mystery to rest. For them especially.” He gestured to Finn and Cady. She looked away.
“Why did she do it?” Finn said.
“She sees us as diseased,” Zac said. Quietly, but Cady flinched as if he’d shouted. “She thought the cure would give them a normal life span. Immediate death was an accident.”
“Not that it matters,” Cady said.
Finn looked across to her. “Of course it does.”
“What, that her motives were pure? I couldn’t care less.”
Zac rested his still-full spaghetti dish on his knees. “She intended to fix it, make it into a true cure for us. And she’s had no one. She compared her life to solitary confinement.”
“Solitary confinement is where she belongs,” Cady said. “Someplace she can’t cure anyone else.”
He wouldn’t contradict words spoken from so much pain, but he wouldn’t ignore pain like Rachel’s either, invisibility to the entire human race. He didn’t know how to ignore it.
“I’m not looking for a consensus,” Zac said. “You each do what you want to do.”
“What’ll you do?” Finn said.
From Sky to Sky Page 19