The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(25)

Czerny cocked his head in surprise. David shrugged. “I peeked.”

“Ah. Of course. Can’t say I blame you.” He beckoned to people in the hall. “Come. Come.”

Amanda and Mia stepped into the doorway, and now David smiled for real.

For a split second, Amanda’s primal instincts growled like a Doberman. She’d expected to find someone in the same wretched condition as herself and Mia. Instead she saw this gorgeous blue-eyed boy, one so clean that he practically glistened. And then there was the smile. He’s smiling! For a tense beat, Amanda drank him in with ice-cold suspicion. Uh-uh. No way. You are not one of us.

While Czerny handled the introductions, Amanda took a deeper look. Now she caught the uncertainty in David’s eyes, the work of anxious self-distraction on the pool table, the shiny silver bracelet on his wrist. Her judgment was six miles out of whack today. He is one of us.

“I don’t mean to grin like an idiot,” he told Amanda, as if he’d read her concerns. “I’ve just been wondering for the last hour if anyone else managed to survive whatever it is I survived. I’m only smiling now because the answer’s obviously yes. That’s the first good news I’ve gotten all day.”

The last of Amanda’s doubts melted into a gooey puddle. Now she fought the urge to hug him.

“It’s nice to meet you, David. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m not sure ‘okay’ is the operative word. But I’m alive. I suppose I should be thankful for that.”

She finally got around to noticing that David, like Czerny, had an unmistakable accent.

“You’re Australian.”

“Yeah. I grew up there. First Brisbane, then Perth. But I’ve been traveling with my father these last six years and I haven’t been back. Hello.”

His greeting was aimed at Mia, who’d once again taken refuge behind Amanda. After all the terrible events of the morning, her mind was in a state of wreckage, a crushed and crackling fuse box. And yet one teenage circuit seemed to work just fine. Like a special news bulletin, it interrupted her grief to announce that there was an insanely beautiful boy in the room, wearing nothing but a robe. It also reminded her that she was still in her pajamas, still covered in dirt, and—lest she forget—still really fat.

“Hi,” she said in a barely audible whisper.

Czerny clapped his hands together. “Okay. I apologize for the brevity, but Ms. Given needs medical attention. Mia, would you like to stay here a bit or would you prefer a shower?”

“Shower, please.”

He smirked. “I thought as much. Beatrice, would you?”

“Of course.” Caudell gestured to Mia. “Come with me.”

As they unlinked hands, Mia and Amanda exchanged a brief glance, a wordless agreement to reconnect soon. It scared Amanda to think how very un-Christian she’d become if anyone here mistreated the girl.

Czerny glanced at David. “They’ll be back soon. And there are more arriving.”

“Wow. That’s excellent. I’m very encouraged to hear that.”

“How old are you?” Amanda asked him.

The question earned her another smile. This one was softer, hand-rolled with evincible pain.

“I just turned sixteen,” David said. “Yesterday, in fact.”

She couldn’t imagine a worse thing to do right now than wish him a belated happy birthday.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for your losses as well.”

Orphans, she thought. It’s just me and orphans.

“We’ll be back,” Czerny repeated to David. “Let us know if there’s anything you need.”

“At some point, I’d like real clothes. I also wouldn’t mind some more information about . . . you know, all of this.”

“Soon,” Czerny promised. “Soon to both.”

He escorted Amanda back to the lobby. David blew a smirking sigh.

“Right. I’ll just keep amusing myself then.”

He took another look at his careful spiral construct. After a moment’s consideration, he flicked the trigger domino, then watched the pieces fall.

—

“Remarkable, isn’t he?”

“I’m sorry?”

Czerny continued to position Amanda’s wrist in the scanner. “David. Hard to believe he’s just sixteen. I know it’s premature to say, but I suspect he’s a genius.”

The medical lab was once a hotel meeting room. Only the conference tables had been removed, replaced by expensive-looking machines that were utter mysteries to Amanda. The device Czerny currently used on her arm had six Frisbee-size metal rings, all connected by gooseneck rods to a contraption that resembled a photocopier. Czerny had called it a free-induction tomograph. She assumed the imaging was electromagnetic, like MRI scans.

As the machine hummed in busy analysis, Amanda writhed uncomfortably at the odd sensation in her healthy arm. It tingled nonstop with invisible flurry, as if a thousand ants crawled all over it.

“From what he told me, he had a very unique upbringing,” Czerny said. “His father was a world-renowned theoretical physicist, much like our own Dr. Quint. The two of them traveled the world. David’s lived in Mexico, England, Japan, Holland. Never in one place more than a year.”