We both had to hunt down that state of exhaustion that would let us sleep. But eventually I found myself lying on my back looking at the bedroom ceiling through half-closed eyes, aware, but not desperately so, of the strong, supple body stretched out and touching mine, thinking about rolling over toward her and wondering if I would fall asleep before I got it done. Something about the light on the other side of the bedroom blinds suggested that dawn was close.

I turned my head and saw Sunny, her head raised a little by the pillow and one hand, watching me, her expression detached and a little speculative. I remembered, all in a rush, where I’d seen the expression before: when she’d collected me from the Hard Luck, when she’d asked about Richard Weineman, when she’d wanted to know the story of my last great disaster out in the World, the last major roadmark on my trip to Bordertown. And I wouldn’t tell her. I wouldn’t even tell Tick-Tick, that hungover morning over waffles and strawberries, which was—oh, God, only days ago. Only days. And I’d said to the Ticker that if I told anybody about it, I’d tell her. Already, in a few days, it was too late.

I rolled over abruptly, but in the opposite direction from the one I’d thought about a minute before. Sunny said, “It’s all right. Go to sleep.”

I didn’t think I could anymore. But as I waited for sleep, I heard myself say, “I didn’t even think I was on my way here. I was just getting away. I didn’t know I was getting away to Bordertown. I was hitchhiking—I got one of those rides that your parents tell you about to try to scare you off hitching. God, if anybody ever got one, of course I would.”

She didn’t say anything at first; then she said, “You don’t have to tell me this.”

“I know I don’t have to,” I said, and sucked in my breath against the pain. “That’s why I can.” If I had to, I’d fight it like death itself. But with you, I don’t have to. That was what I was echoing: Tick-Tick’s words.

I pressed on. “I’d taken some recreational drug, I don’t remember what. I was almost always on something back then. I thought I could turn off the finding ability with it, if I just found the right thing to take. And this guy stopped for me in his big damned boat of a car, and he had some hash, and some pills of some kind, and the next thing I knew it was night, and he’d pulled off the highway down a dirt road by a creek.