The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(29)

“You don’t know it was the drug that did that.”

“Then what happened to him?”

Sighing, Hannah crunched the cap in her grip. In truth, she had no idea what happened. Even in a lucid state, she’d have a hell of a time explaining the curious case of Theo Maranan.

—

Thirty-two minutes ago, she’d discovered the ultimate recipe for joy: a baby spot and a comfortable seat in a fast-moving vehicle. The view outside the window was poetry in motion, an ever-changing canvas of color and light. Every time the van stopped at a traffic signal, she’d snap out of her euphoric daze and launch chirpy, childlike questions at her two Salgado escorts. What makes ambulances fly? Are we getting Zack next? Do you know the white-haired man? Why isn’t everyone in the world addicted to baby spots?

With dwindling patience, Martin fielded her queries (“Aeris,” “Maybe,” “Who?” “Because the more you use them, the less they work”). His son raced through yellow lights just to keep her quiet.

Soon the van pulled into an alley behind a supermarket. Hannah peered through the front grate and studied Martin’s handheld computer. The screen contained a grayscale city map, peppered with four blinking red dots.

“What are the dots? Are those the people you’re looking for? And how are you finding us anyway? Our bracelets?”

The Salgados opened their doors and hurried outside.

“We’ll be back in a couple,” said Martin. “Just sit back and stay easy, okay?”

Hannah let out a cynical snort. “You sound like my last date.”

She spent the next few minutes in cushy silence, pinching her lip with growing fluster as the awful sounds of apocalypse came trickling back into memory. The booming crackle of the hardening sky. The horrible crunching noise of the frozen corpses . . .

The back doors of the van suddenly sprung open. Hannah saw Gerry Salgado struggling with a thrashing young Asian. He wore a dirty gray hoodie over khaki shorts and sandals. Sun-bleached letters on his chest advertised Stanford University. An Oakland A’s baseball cap lay askew on his head.

Martin affixed a small black sticker to the stranger’s neck, then joined his son in the tussle. The captive helplessly writhed in their grip.

“Let me go! Please! I’m not ready for this!”

The Salgados forced him into the seat opposite Hannah, then held him in place until he sat still. Hannah noticed a pair of foreign script symbols tattooed on the inside of his left wrist. The silver bracelet on his other arm was all too familiar.

“There we go,” said Martin. “You feeling better now?”

The man nodded at Martin. Hannah could see he was in dire need of a shave and a haircut. He couldn’t have become this disheveled just from one morning.

“I’m not ready,” he repeated.

“Not ready for what?” Hannah asked him, eliciting glares from both Salgados.

The stranger finally noticed her. His twitchy gaze stopped at her bracelet.

“You’re kidding, right?” He glanced at the Salgados. “Is she kidding me?”

Martin rubbed his arm impatiently. “Okay, listen, we need to get moving again. I’ll trust you two to get along back here. You’re both in the same fix and you’re both gonna be okay.”

Soon they were traveling again. Hannah wasn’t pleased that her window view was now obscured by 160 pounds of discombobulated Asian, but she didn’t want to offend him by moving away.

Screw it, she thought. Might as well mingle.

“Hi. I’m Hannah. What’s your name?”

He took off his cap and fluffed his messy hair.

“Theo,” he replied hoarsely. “Theo Maranan.”

“Hi, Theo. How you feeling now?”

He smeared his bleary eyes. “Fluffy and awkward. Like rabbits are screwing in my head.”

Hannah grinned. “Yeah. That’s the baby spot. It gets better.”

“What’s a baby spot?”

“The little patch on your neck. It’s a drug. A mood-lifter.”

His face crunched with confusion. “They have drugs here?”

“Yeah. Sure. Why wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. I just assumed.”

For all his wear and tear, Hannah found Theo to be somewhat easy on the eyes. He wasn’t especially burly but he had broad shoulders and finely chiseled features. On a better day, in a better state, she might have even flirted with him.

He raised a loose finger at her arm sling. “You mind if I ask how, uh . . . ?”

“Oh, this? I had some kind of weird mental seizure. Then I hit a bus.”

“Wow. Damn. That would do it.”

She looked again at the script symbols on his arm. “Maranan. That’s Filipino, right?”

He nodded, impressed. “Yeah. Very good. Most folks guess wrong.”

“Well, I dated one of your people.”

“Fair enough. I dated one of yours.”

The two of them plunged into giddy chuckles, prompting Martin to turn around and check on them.

“Okay, I see what you mean about the baby spot,” Theo said. “I shouldn’t be laughing at all, given what’s coming.”

Hannah’s smile died away. “What’s coming?”

“Are you kidding?”