Max.
Of course it’s Max, but there’s a surreal moment where I doubt myself, because I’ve been running for my life with the guy and I never noticed the color of his eyes or his freckles or his scar. I didn’t get too close. Didn’t look too hard. That’s my life these days. I spent almost three hours with a group of kids—first in therapy and then as captives—and I couldn’t tell you any of their eye colors. I just didn’t care enough to notice.
“Riley?” Max says.
“Turn toward the wall.” That’s Lorenzo, rasping, his words barely more than breath. I glance down at him and he says, “It’s the blood. Look away, Riley, and focus on something else.” A pained chuckle. “Think about all the more exciting things you could have been doing this weekend.”
I swallow, and I move toward him.
He shakes his head, grimacing with the effort. “Turn away. It’ll be easier if—”
“I don’t want it to be easier.” It shouldn’t be easier. You’re dying, and you’re telling me to look away because it’s triggering my trauma. I skirt the blood and crouch by his head. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Survive.”
I glance at Max, and he’s breathing shallowly through his mouth, and maybe it’s the smell of the blood, but I think he’s struggling to keep calm, to not think about the fact a man is dying in front of us and there’s not a damn thing we can do.
“I-I don’t know first aid,” I say.
A weak smile. “I believe I’m a little beyond that, Riley.” He reaches to take my hand and then sees his is covered in blood, and he stops, and I teeter on the edge of that memory, of myself looking at the blood on my hands, and I squeeze my eyes shut before I topple back into it.
“We can get a mobile,” Max says, his voice low. “Call for help. That’s what we can do. I know they took yours and Aimee’s, but are there any others?”
“Two kids brought theirs. They’re with …” Lorenzo trails off as shoes squeak in the hall.
I dart to the door, left cracked open for that little extra light, and I start to ease it shut. Then I hear someone struggling to catch his breath and keep quiet. I peek out. It’s Aimee.
I open the door, and she wheels and spots me. Her mouth forms a perfect O. Then her gaze drops to the blood on the floor. She sprints over, shoes squeaking again, and I wince, but I don’t hear anyone else.
I usher her inside. She sees Lorenzo and stops with a yelp. I resist the urge to clap my hand to her mouth and instead motion frantically for her to keep her voice down.
“They need …” Lorenzo struggles, as if he used up his energy talking to us. “Cell phone. You have …”
“You have the mobiles,” Max says to Aimee. “Is that right? The ones you confiscated?”
She’s staring dumbly at Lorenzo. I have to take her arm and squeeze, and even then her gaze barely flicks my way.
“Unless you’re a doctor,” I say, “the best thing we can do for him is get those cell phones. Lorenzo said two kids brought theirs.”
A slow nod. “Aaron tried to smuggle his in, but I found it while his driver was still there, and I gave it back. Maria brought hers by accident. It’s with the meds.”
“Brilliant,” Max says. “Now where are the meds?”
Aimee looks at Lorenzo. “You had them.”
“Right,” he says slowly. “But I gave them to you. You’re in charge of everything the kids brought, including the meds and that cell phone.”
She blinks hard. “Yes. Of course. Sorry.”
“Aimee …” Lorenzo says when she stops. “Take Max and Riley to the cell phone. They can handle it from there.”
His lips quirk, as if there’s irony in that: the messed-up therapy kids taking charge.
“I’ve been through something like this,” I say. “I’m inoculated.”
Max laughs at that, a snort that he cuts short. Lorenzo allows himself a chuckle, as if not quite willing to go as far as admitting it’s funny. From Aimee’s expression, she thinks I’ve lost it, like I’m on that brink of running screaming down the hall. Which is probably true, but I latch on to Max’s laugh. It relaxes me, as does the grin he shoots as a follow-up.
“All right, then,” Max says. “Let’s get on with it.” He cranks up his accent another notch. “Tallyho, and all that.”
“What does that even mean?” I say. “Tallyho?”
“No idea,” he whispers as he walks past, and I laugh then, a small one, choked back.
Before I leave, I bend at Lorenzo’s side and reach for his bloodied hand, and when he resists, I take it anyway, and I squeeze it, and say, “Hang in there,” and he says, “Whatever that means,” and we exchange a real smile before I go.
CHAPTER 10
Gray and Predator are stalking us. We can hear them as we creep along the hall.
I ask about the other kids as soon as we’re in the corridor. Aimee confirms that Brienne and Aaron escaped the therapy room.
“Together?” I ask.
“I … I don’t know. It all happened so fast. I was trying to help Gideon.”
“Gideon? What happened?”
“He was shot. Right as you two escaped. I stayed with him, and he was still alive, along with the guy he shot. Then they—the kidnappers—went after Aaron, and I ran for help, and maybe I should have stayed with Gideon, but he was so far gone …”