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“What?” he shouts from behind me as we make our way through the crowd.

“Leave it alone!” I shout back once we’re outside. “Can we stop talking about this and go home? I need this day to be over.”

We get in the back of Tilda’s cab, the only one in town, and hold on for dear life as she speeds and swerves her way back to my house. She’s a terrible driver, but she’s also all we’ve got.

Just as we’re about to reach the front door, Abe throws out his arm to block me from it. “Do not move.”

I peek around his beefy frame to see him pull a taped piece of paper from my doorknob. “What does it say?”

He turns to show me, and my stomach drops.

Written in big black letters, it says, “Your remaining breaths are few.”

Chapter 7

Emma

Ziggy wasn’t home last night when whoever it was left the note on my door. Thank god. He was off doing what he does best, stealing shoes from people’s doorsteps and dropping them just inside the tree line of Mapletown Forest. I’ve asked him repeatedly why he does it and to please stop, but his answer is always the same.

Allow me this one source of unbridled chaos, won’t you? You make me defecate in a plastic box.

The security camera showed a masked person of medium height and build wearing a navy-blue hoodie and jeans placing the warning on my door, but from the footage, it didn’t seem like they did anything else before taking off down the block on foot. There was also no way to tell who it was since they were so covered up. I think it was a man, because not all men but always a man, right? But the hoodie was too oversized to get a sense of their body shape.

After Abe searched the house from top to bottom and indicated it was safe to enter, I passed out on top of my covers without even brushing my teeth. It’s why this morning has been a waking nightmare since I opened my eyes. Abe was there, at the ready with ibuprofen and water, but that, a shower, and a breakfast burrito wasn’t enough to shake me out of this dehydrated and miserable state.

Despite how much pain I’m in, I head straight to the hospital to visit Ezra before heading into work. I don’t want this guilt hanging over me like a cloud. Ilana isn’t there when I arrive, which feels like miraculous timing because I don’t have the energy for another confrontation.

Abe places the snake plant we picked up on the side table, and I lower myself into the reclining chair beside Ezra. Their glasses are off and neatly folded on the nightstand, and I find myself annoyed by this. I know they don’t need to see when they’re unconscious, but still. It’s become such a fixture of Ezra’s face that they look strange without them. Strange and so small. Ezra’s taller than me by about three inches and covered in lean muscle, but lying here, they look frail. I hate it.

I blow out a shaky breath. “Hey, dweeb, it’s me.” The small room is filled with so many flower bouquets, stuffed animals, and balloons it looks more like Ezra’s taking a nap in the gift shop. “Man, people really seem to love you. Jury’s still out on why.” I can’t bring myself to chuckle at my joke because of the silence that buries it.

“Tell them about the investigation,” Abe suggests in a quiet voice.

What’s the point? “How the committee thinks it might be the Nut brothers but aren’t entirely sure?”

“Tell them everything.” A heavy hand lands on my shoulder, and the contact feels so nice and foreign I lean into it. “Speak as you normally would.”

I scrub a hand down my face, willing the pounding behind my eyelids to stop, and spill the tea about what’s happened since the attack. I tell them everything I know and wrap it up with how terrified I should be that the bomber came to my house last night, but like rain falling into a pool, I’ve already reached peak anxiety and adding another layer doesn’t change how I go about my day.

Abe hands me a box of tissues, and it’s only then I realize I’ve been crying hard enough to accrue several wet spots on the thighs of my pants. “Thanks,” I say with a sniffle.

He drops down into a crouch beside me, and at first I think he’s waiting for me to be done with the tissue box, but when I hand it back to him, he remains there.

“What are you doing?”

His brow furrows as he stares at the tiled floor. I wait so long for a reply I wonder if he’s gone into sleep mode like my computer. Eventually, he says, “I’m…not sure. It felt as if you needed me down here with you.”

Oh.

That’s actually kind of sweet. I didn’t think a robot would be capable of displaying empathy in such a physical way, and it’s clear Abe is also surprised by it. Interesting.

“Oh, my apologies. Am I interrupting?” a voice calls from the door.

It’s a woman about my height and matching thickness, with light brown skin and long black hair with matching gray streaks framing her face. She’s wearing black linen overalls with a white T-shirt, and each step emits a loud clack from her bright purple clogs. She’s new to town, and her name is escaping me at the moment.

“Good day, Mayor Crane,” she says.

A light bulb blinks in my head at the greeting because I never hear those specific words without a thick Australian accent attached, and I had the same thought the day we met. “Ms. Stine, right?” Mapletown’s new mortician.