The Rains (Untitled #1)(64)

We heard movements inside some houses and on the nearby streets, but we chose our path well, weaving through the neighborhood one cautious block at a time.

We were halfway there when Patrick took a knee behind the special van that the Dubois family kept for Blake and his wheelchair. Breathing hard, he held up a finger to signal that he needed a second to catch his breath. Sweat trickled from his hairline, and his face looked washed of color.

“Sorry,” he said. “Oxygen. Fuzzy.”

I eased him down so he could lean against one big tire, then sat next to him. In the darkness the combination of the mask and his cowboy hat made him look pretty scary. For a time he tried to catch his breath. Then he made a fist around the tube trailing up to the H tank on the gurney. Was he so loopy that he was thinking of ripping it out?

“What do we do when the tanks run dry?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

I couldn’t take my eyes off his fingers tensed around that tube. “We go back to the hospital and fill them up again.”

“How ’bout when the IV food is gone?”

“Dr. Chatterjee said he thinks he can figure out some kind of system to make more.”

Patrick gave a slow nod, but his face didn’t hold much hope. “And what about when the next kid turns eighteen? Or Alex? Or you?”

“Let’s worry about that later,” I said.

His fist tightened around the tube. “It sucks living like this. A mask clamped over my face. Being fed through tubes and needles. Forever.”

I watched his fingers turn white as he squeezed the tube, then released it.

“Actually, not forever,” he added. A bitterness I didn’t recognize had crept into his voice. “Just till the mask slips some night when I’m sleeping. Or a tank malfunctions. Or I sneeze wrong and blow the tube out.”

“Look,” I said, “we just bought you more time. For the particulates to dissipate.”

“For a miracle,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “For that.”

He squeezed the tube again, kept it compressed. His eyes looked hazy, his gaze loose, though whether from the oxygen or not, I couldn’t tell.

I stood up and offered him a hand. “Alex is waiting for you.”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he released the tube and took my hand.

I knew that would do it.

Our progress felt like torture, every rasp of our boots against asphalt amplified tenfold, every creak from a shadowed porch amplified a hundredfold. But even with that squeaky wheel, even pushing a gurney loaded with seven giant tanks and one portable one, we made it through undetected. At last we came up on the edge of the teachers’ parking lot, halting behind a row of hedges.

Leaving the gurney, I crawled through the hedges and signaled at the front gate with a blip of my flashlight. Then I waited for Alex’s signal that the coast was clear.

No signal came.

I waited and waited and then flickered my beam again and waited some more. Only darkness stared back through the bars of the gate.

I crawled out to where Patrick crouched by the gurney. “No signal,” I whispered. “Maybe Alex took a bathroom break.”

“No,” he said. “She’d be there. Something’s wrong.”

Carefully, he lifted his H tank off the gurney. “Let’s head for the gate. We’ll come back for the other tanks later.”

We slithered through the bushes to the other side, cast glances around us, then bolted across the parking lot. Panting, we reached the gate.

It was locked.

We looked around frantically, Patrick’s biceps bulging under the weight of the hundred-pound tank. Once again I clicked my flashlight through the bars toward the building.

Something glinted in the grass.

I lowered the beam.

It was Alex’s jigsaw pendant glittering among the blades.

Beside it, grooves gouged the grass, trailing out through the gate.

Finger marks.

The beam wobbled in my hand. I didn’t dare look over at Patrick, but I could sense him staring where I stared, seeing what I was seeing.

A voice from the darkness startled us. “Chance. Patrick.”

A girl ran up to the gate, fumbling with Ezekiel’s giant key ring.

It was Eve, not Alex.

Her hands were shaking even worse than mine.

“She’s gone.” Eve unlocked the gate and stepped back, letting it creak inward. “They got Alex.”





ENTRY 28

As Patrick and I staggered into the gym, the others rose to their feet as one. I couldn’t tell if it was a show of respect for Patrick since his girlfriend had been taken or if it was some kind of perverse curiosity, that they wanted to see our reactions.

Cassius ran up, put his front paws on my chest, and licked my face. The display of affection felt out of place considering the news we’d just received.

Ben regarded us with something like awe. “You made it,” he said. “You actually made it.”

Setting down his tank, Patrick collapsed against the nearest wall. Dr. Chatterjee ran over to him.

“The oxygen levels are playing games with him,” I said.

Chatterjee checked Patrick’s eyes, then began adjusting the dials. “Please talk to JoJo,” he said to me over his shoulder. “Behind the bleachers.”