She sat down on her cot and just … stared. What is happening to us? she thought. He went to talk to Monica instead of coming with me. Monica. Okay, that was probably mean and cruel to even think it; he’d gone to break the news of Richard’s death, and that had taken guts. She really hadn’t wanted to do it, though she’d offered. I just wish he’d come back. I need …

She needed to know he was okay. Because he’d seriously lost it out there at the MHS shed. Whatever was happening in his head was strange and disconnected, and she was afraid, deeply afraid, that it would never get better.

It’s a miracle he survived, Theo had told her. But what if he hadn’t, all the way? What could she do to help?

Her brain kept whirling around, desperate to find answers, and she wasn’t even aware of the time passing until she heard the door open and close.

It was Shane. He looked … tired. And, for a moment, pretty sad.

“How’d she take it?” Claire asked, and sat up.

He shook his head. “Not well.” He rubbed his forehead as if it hurt, and there was that distance in his eyes, that distraction.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“I can’t. Not right now, okay?”

“No, you know what? Really not okay,” Claire said. “What happened to you?” She wasn’t going to let it go, let him go. Not this time. There was nobody here, nobody to worry about overhearing whatever he had to tell her. Just the two of them. “You haven’t been the same since—”

“Since you got me back,” Shane said. “I know.” He looked around at the room. “Somebody redecorated, didn’t they?”

“Shane!”

“You should get some sleep, Claire.”

“No! I will not get some sleep, because you are going to tell me what’s going on with you, right now!”

He sat down on the edge of the cot where his old camp bed had been. “That’s not how it works,” he said. “Trust me. It’s just not. Because I don’t know how to explain it. It’s all …” He lifted a hand, and let it fall. “Mist.”

She tried to guess, out of wild desperation. “Was it—Michael said they made you dream. Bad dreams? Was it—was it about your sister?” Because he’d been haunted by Alyssa’s death for a long time now, and about his failure to save her in the fire. Never mind that he couldn’t have done anything. “Your mom?”

He let out a frayed sound she only recognized a second later as a laugh. “I wish they’d stuck to that,” he said. “I can deal with nightmares, I really can. But not dreams. Not …” All of a sudden his eyes just filled up with tears, and spilled over, and he ducked his chin and grabbed the frame of the cot as if it were moving around him. “Not seeing what I can’t have.”

“What can’t you have?” She sank down on her knees, looking up into his face, watching the tears roll silently down his cheeks. He wasn’t sobbing. It was as if he didn’t even know it was happening. “Shane, please. Help me understand. You’re not making any sense. What happened?”