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It slammed into his chest—fear—knocking the stolen breath from him. A sheet of paper fluttered on the wooden slats, impaled with a pin, white as a corpse. He ripped it away with trembling fingers and read the clumsy print.
I know where you are.
Simon’s fingers tightened convulsively, ripping a corner off. He fumbled for the letter, reading on.
I am tired of this game. You bore me. I can follow you, and you’ll never know. I can kill you, and you won’t have a chance. No more cat and mouse. No more nice to brother. You are a pest, a gnat. No one will miss you. No one will notice. No one will care. Run, Simon, run. You are dead.
It was signed Christopher.
“Too late,” Simon muttered, “too late,” and crushed the note in his hands. It stopped them from shaking. Maybe last week I’d have run, he thought, but not now. I have a weapon you don’t know about, Christopher. Then his eyes widened with an awful thought. Zoë! Did he know about Zoë? Simon suddenly wanted to run to her, warn her. Or should he run away, hide, never go near her again? He turned, indecisive, almost in panic, and saw the horizon tinged pink. I can’t go anywhere, he realized with a sinking dread. There’s nothing I can do. I’m trapped again by my own stinking disease.
He yanked a board away to get inside and slid through, ripping his jeans on a nail.
But he can’t go out, either, Simon comforted himself, not unsupervised, not during daylight. Christopher was as trapped as he was, and even if he should reach her, he hadn’t much strength under the sun. Then another thought struck him. “I’m a fool,” he said, and slapped the board carelessly into place behind him. No one will miss you, Christopher had written. No one will notice. He didn’t know about her.
But when had Christopher followed him? Had it been the night after Simon’s botched attack, or one of the subsequent nights? Simon ran his fingers through his fine hair repeatedly, unconsciously, sweeping it back from his face. If only he knew. But surely, if Christopher had seen him with her, he’d throw it in his face, threaten her to taunt him? That would be like Christopher. Yes, he thought, sinking down in relief, that would be much more like him. So he followed me a night I didn’t see her, or found me after, Simon decided. He really doesn’t know she exists.
Simon dragged the suitcase out from under the desk and stroked the surface carefully, drawing strength from his native earth. I will sleep, he thought. I will sleep and get strength. And then we will see.
But the fear still plagued him as he tried to take his rest. What if I’m wrong? What if he knows, and he’s leading me on? What if he hurts her?
Tortured by his thoughts, he didn’t see the first burning ray of sun slide through the crack where the board didn’t fit.
13
Zoë
She was outside Lorraine’s house. They were bringing a stretcher out. Zoë’s mother was on it, eyes closed, face pale, but she spoke. “I forgot my painting. Can you get it? I have to take it with me.” They carried her where an ambulance waited. Zoë wanted to get the painting for her mother before they left. She walked through the hospital doors.
The elevator was small. A metal grid clamped shut with an echoing crash as she stepped inside. She was trapped. The elevator shook violently as it climbed—slowly, agonizingly slowly. Hurry up. Hurry up. She didn’t recognize any of the floors it opened on. The lift ground to a halt, but the doors were jammed. Slats began to fall from the floor one by one. Fear clenched in her throat. She pounded the metal, begging it to relent. She was going to fall, to crash down floor after floor and end up a limp puppet on basement concrete.
The doors opened, but the elevator hadn’t quite reached the floor. She struggled for footholds up the brick wall and crawled through the crack, her breath ragged. Blinding white light greeted her.
She was on a ledge high above the street. The ambulance, far below, was leaving. “Don’t go!” Stomach-wrenching fear would allow her only to crawl on her belly along the ledge, clutching its sides against the great empty rushing space below. The wind screamed above her.
She swung her legs over the edge. She had to catch up. At first there was nothing except the certainty of plunging death. Great chunks of building began to fly off at her hands’ touch. Her toes found wall. Her feet scrambled and slipped. She slid and cried out, expecting to meet the sidewalk abruptly, but found a handhold again. Scraped and gashed, she reached the ground.
The ambulance was still leaving. She ran after it. Her legs wouldn’t move fast enough, as if the air were thick. Tears ran down her face.
Lorraine was beside her, and she offered Zoë a painting. Zoë burst with anger and hit her. “It’s all right,” Lorraine said. “She’s only going to Oregon. You can visit.”
A wave of relief washed over Zoë. She took the painting. In it was a boy with silver hair, dressed in bright colors, laughing.
Zoë lay blinking in the pale dawn light coming through the bedroom curtains. She moved her head slightly to make sure Lorraine was still on the floor in her sleeping bag. The dream clung to her like a mist. She’s only going to Oregon. You can visit. She could still feel the relief. I was angry at Lorraine, she thought. I was getting them mixed up—both going away. It’s not her fault, not the fault of either of them. I might have been taking it out on her.
She studied Lorraine’s sleeping face. I have to memorize it, she thought.
Around the green sleeping bag, where Lorraine snuggled on the floor, were scattered photographs, yearbooks, diaries, homemade picture books, and Zoë’s notebooks full of poetry; the accumulated memories of years of friendship. The turntable still circled lazily. They had forgotten it completely as they lay in bed talking long after the last record had been played.
Lorraine was leaving today. That’s what made it different from the many other mornings they had shared. Thank God I called her, Zoë thought. We wouldn’t have had even this. I didn’t realize it was creeping up so fast.
Lorraine had seemed tentative last night, at first—almost shy, not like her. She seemed eager to please. Maybe I should have got mad at her more often, Zoë thought perversely, and not let her walk all over me.
“You look pale,” Lorraine had said soon after arriving.
“You’re not ill, are you?”
Zoë had smiled at her friend’s concern. The attention felt good. “No. It’s just … things, I guess.”
