He handed his credit card over, slipping an arm across her shoulders.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yep.”

He waited until they were in the car to press her for more.

“I take it no needles? Or maybe just a couple?”

Kate tucked her hair behind her ears. “Last month’s treatment put a dent in my lupus. He’s also worried about the overall effect another one so close to the first will have on my body. So, he’s giving me a break. I don’t get another one like it until the fall.”

He gave her a high five. “That’s great news.”

“It’s nice to know that I won’t spend the summer rolling around in agony. Just the fall.”

“Maybe by then things will be even better, so long as we take extra special care of you.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Her smile lit up the car. She had left the house a condemned woman, and she’d just gotten a reprieve. He didn’t know who was feeling happier at the moment.

“I have my ways. First thing we’re going to do is step up your nutrition game. I’ll get you those health shakes. You know, the ones they feed old people in rest homes.”

“No way. I hate those things. They taste like chemicals.”

He shook his head. “Sorry. You’re not going to be able to fight lupus and every other germ that floats your way on leftover Milano’s. We have to make you strong, like bull.” He tapped his chest with a fist.

Kate giggled. “Fine. But I can only suffer one of those shakes a day.”

“I’ll take it.”

She cranked up the radio, filling the car with Katy Perry’s latest bombastic ballad.

This was the first good news they’d had all year. Even though darkness was on the horizon, they were being given a small break, one they needed to take advantage of. They’d have to celebrate properly.

By the time he got her changed and comfortable in the living room, Andrew knew exactly what he was going to do.

Chapter Five

Meditation wasn’t working. Nothing she did could get her to sleep. Even the new fentanyl patch, which usually got her head all soupy, limbs soft as cooked spaghetti, had failed.

The doctor had said there would be lingering effects from the treatment. Kind of like acid flashbacks. Right now, she pictured some toxic green goo running through her veins instead of blood. She felt both powerful and powerless. If someone put a gun to her head, demanding to know exactly what she was feeling and why, she’d be eating a bullet.

One moment, she was restless and breathless, her heart trip-hammering. The next, she was dizzy and weak, her body feeling as if she were about to spontaneously combust.

There were no lurking shadows. This hadn’t been a bad feels day.