The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(50)

It was Amanda’s thoughts that concerned Zack the most. She remained silent for the rest of the meal, and stone-faced throughout the evening movie.

At bedtime, she approached her room and noticed Zack watching her from his doorway.

“What?”

“You’ve been quiet since I mentioned my mouse trick. Did it upset you?”

“A little,” she admitted.

“You want to talk about it?”

She crossed her arms, bathing him in the same inscrutable look that had bugged him for hours.

“No. I’ll work it out.” She opened her door, then eyed him one last time. “Good night.”

Amanda skipped her hygiene and prayers and went straight to bed, her jade eyes dancing in restless bother. She’d devoted half her life to God and medicine and now suddenly this mordant atheist could heal with a flick of a finger. And what came out of her hands?

She rolled on her back and cast a contemptuous glare at her creator. Apparently, among His other faults, the Lord had Zack’s sense of humor.

—

The sisters weren’t eager to face their paranormal afflictions.

For their first two weeks in Terra Vista, Hannah and Amanda lived in quiet hope that the churning forces inside them would simply go away—a one-time outbreak, like chicken pox.

Fearing that anger was the catalyst of her unholy white weirdness, Amanda kept an iron lid on her temper. She sat calmly through her daily scientist interviews, answering all questions with clenched-jaw amenity. She held her tongue when Hannah voiced her growing attraction to David, and held her scream when David spoke glowingly of Esis. She ignored all the puns, cracks, and antics of Zack Trillinger, a man who irked her even when he was being nice.

Though the restraint nearly burned her an ulcer, Amanda’s perseverance paid off in exactly the way she hoped. For fourteen days, her hands remained blessedly pink and normal.

On August 7, illness and sibling disharmony eroded the walls of her composure. The sisters were the first and worst victims of the invading virus. They spent the afternoon laid up in their room. By nightfall, their foul moods turned on each other.

“I’m just saying he’s sixteen, Hannah. It’s not healthy.”

“Would you shut up about that? I told you we’re not doing anything. We’re just taking walks together. Jesus.”

“Well, you need to be careful. You don’t always make the best decisions when you’re grieving.”

Hannah covered her face. “Oh my God.”

“What? Am I wrong? Do you not remember—”

“No, Amanda, you’re absolutely right. I make cruel and awful decisions. Like, you remember how I dropped my married name an hour after my husband died? Oh wait. That was you.”

Amanda raised her head from the pillow. “I can’t believe you said that. I honestly can’t believe you just said that.”

“Yeah, well, here’s a cross and some nails. Have fun up there.”

After an hour of livid silence, Amanda fell into fevered dreams. She replayed her final moments with Derek in the waiting room—the frost on his nose, the bitter rage in his voice. I’m actually glad we’re going to different places. What does that say about you?

A thunderous crash jerked her awake. Coughing in dust, Amanda turned on the lamp and found half the room covered in broken plaster. The outer shell of the ceiling had rained down on them, leaving a rug-size patch of dangling wires and cracked wooden beams.

Hannah had gotten the worst of the downfall. Her face and hair were white with dust. Thin trickles of blood oozed from her forehead, her shoulders.

Amanda rushed to her side. “Hannah! Are you okay?”

“No! What happened?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe it was an earthquake. I . . .”

Amanda suddenly registered the jarring nakedness on her arms. Her shirtsleeves were shredded. The fiber cast on her wrist had mysteriously vanished. Even her wedding ring was gone.

Oh no . . .

Three hours later, she sat in the medical lab, staring darkly at her lap while Czerny made a replacement cast for her.

“Your sister’s fine,” he assured Amanda. “She’s already sleeping. The damage—”

“I want to see the surveillance footage.”

Czerny paused his work. “I’m not sure that’s wise, Amanda.”

“I have to see it. Please.”

Soon she sat in his office, watching a bird’s-eye recording of the sisters in slumber. As Amanda writhed in bed, a thick and craggy whiteness expanded from the skin of her arms—snapping her ring, rending her cast. She threw her palms upward in somnolent fury. They exploded like fire hoses, shooting flowing cones of force at the ceiling camera. The video turned to snowy static.

The shock of the incident sent Amanda into self-imposed exile. She retreated to her new single, accepting no visitors, opening her door only for food trays and sedatives.

“I don’t care what it takes,” she told Quint over the phone. “I’ll consent to any test. Any procedure. Just find out what’s in me and get it out.”

At noon, Hannah shambled out of bed and joined the others for lunch in the bistro. She poked a feeble spoon at her chicken soup, her body wallowing under its many new aches and bandages.

“Has anyone spoken to my sister?”