The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(125)
The thought made Amanda queasy. She tested Hannah’s vitals. “If she doesn’t wake up soon, I’m taking her to a hospital.”
“You know you can’t do that.”
“I’m not going to lose her.”
“You’ll lose her to the Deps if you take her to a hospital. You’ll never see her again.”
Amanda pressed her palms to her bleary face. Mia hesitated before throwing the next issue at her.
“Listen, I only gave Zack an epallay. I wasn’t sure how to do the rest.”
“What do you mean? I thought he was okay.”
Mia sighed, focusing hard on the Amanda who saved Zack and not the one who hurt him.
“I think you should go see him.”
—
The second bedroom was a miniature labyrinth of stacked wooden furniture. In the center of the maze was a full-size bed, in the center of the bed was a stretched-out man, and in the center of the man was a cruel and jagged problem.
Zack bit his lower lip, swallowing his cries while Amanda tested each rib for damage.
“This one?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Hold still.”
Mia sat on a dresser, feeling more and more like a voyeur as she watched Amanda place adhesive tape on Zack’s chest. There was something uncomfortably sensual about the way Amanda touched Zack’s shoulder whenever she reached for a new strand, the way he stared at her neck as she worked on him. Once Mia felt sufficiently educated about the treatment process, she left the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
Amanda ran a taut finger along another rib. “This one?”
“No.”
“You sure it doesn’t hurt?”
“I have no reason to lie about it.”
“You also have no reason to act macho around me.”
“I think the last thing either of us needs today—”
He sucked a sharp breath when she found the next cracked rib. Amanda peeled a new strip of tape. Her mouth quivered in tight suppression.
“Can you please just yell at me a little bit so I feel less awful?”
“I told you—”
“I know. I was drugged. I wasn’t responsible. Everyone keeps saying that. But be honest. Would you accept that excuse if you had rifted me today?”
“Probably not,” Zack admitted. “But if I had unrifted you immediately afterward, I’d go a lot easier on myself.”
She shot a sardonic grunt at his bandages. “Right. No harm done.”
“I still can’t believe you caught me.”
“Me neither. It was insane. I didn’t have a single thought in my head. It’s like the tempis just took over.”
“Well, I’m glad the tempis likes me.”
“It likes you,” she sighed. “There’s no question of that.”
In the center of Zack’s cruel and jagged problem was a hot new urge. He wanted to run his hands all over Amanda, explore her with his fingers like a blind man would. He assumed whatever drug Evan had slipped him was still floating around in his veins, eating away at his formidable inhibitions.
Amanda finished mending him, then helped him slide his shirt back on. She told him that he’d have to take it easy for the next few weeks. Zack humored her as if such a thing were possible.
After clearing away the bandage debris, she finally met his stare with deep green sadness.
“She’ll wake up,” Zack assured her. “I know it.”
“How? How can you be sure about anything? It seems like no matter what we do—”
“Amanda . . .”
“It’s just going to get worse.”
“Hey.” He reached for her golden cross necklace and squeezed it between his fingers. “Whatever happened to the woman of faith?”
“Today happened. Now where’s the agnostic with no answers?”
“He was saved,” Zack replied, with a dark and feeble smirk.
Amanda placed a soft hand on his cheek. Her sister’s angry words still stuck in her thoughts like a bee’s broken stinger. You’ve been a widow for eight weeks! Eight weeks, and this is how you act!
She pulled away. “Don’t sleep on your side. And force a few coughs to break up the fluid in your lungs.”
“Amanda . . .”
“I’ll check on you later.”
She fled the room without looking back. Zack watched her depart, then groaned his way back to the mattress. Though he folded his hands over his chest like a serene cadaver, his eyes danced with life and uncertainty.
—
While Hannah and Zack convalesced, the others passed the time in the small living area. Amanda and Theo sat on the couch like waiting room strangers—staring at walls, avoiding each other’s gaze. They both had Hannah on their minds, a hanging mobile of worries that would only spin faster if they acknowledged each other.
At seven o’clock, David made everything worse by turning on the lumivision.
“Sorry, Amanda. We need to know.”
As they feared, their awful brunch had become a top story nationwide. More than a hundred photographs had been snapped during the eighty-eight seconds Zack dangled in a great tempic arm. Most of the pictures were worm’s-eye shots from the grotto, distant enough to obscure his features. Mia balked at the most damning photo—a crystal-clear image of Zack that had been shot through a telephoto lens. One reporter remarked that he looked like a mouse being crushed by a python, an observation that sent the python to tears.