Welga turned and saw him in the kitchen. He walked over, helped her sit up, and handed her a cup of water. A wave of nausea rushed through Welga. She closed her eyes for three deep breaths, then took a sip. The tepid water felt cool on its way to her stomach. She fished out a zip and placed it under her tongue. When she opened her eyes, two grim faces stared at her. They didn’t need words to demand an explanation.

“It’s funny,” she said. “After all these years of avoiding flow, the zips did me in. I have some condition that gets worse every time I take a zip, but while I’m sped up, the symptoms get better. That was an epileptic seizure you saw just now. Withdrawal or maybe more damage. I don’t know.”

Luis nodded. “Nithya mentioned something was going on, but she didn’t say it was this bad.”

“I’m getting worse,” Welga admitted. “I haven’t told her.”

“So why are you still taking those pills?” Papa demanded. “You’re making it bad on purpose?”

Welga waved a tired hand. “I’m down to my last one, mainly to get here. I need to borrow some credit and push on.”

She told them about Connor and the launch and the plan to use Luis’s club instead.

“I’m going to live until I take those fuckers on Eko-Yi down. After that, I don’t know,” Welga said. “But I intend to come back and figure out how to get over this shit.”

“I’m not going back to Chennai,” Luis said.

“What do you mean?” Welga asked.

“I’m going to live here.”

Luis relayed Nithya’s confession. He didn’t mention how she’d gotten the abortion, so her sister-in-law hadn’t told him Welga’s part. Stern approval of Luis’s separation from Nithya took root in Oscar’s face as her brother finished. Christ, her family was so predictable.

The windows rattled.

“Another storm?” Welga said.

“Sounds like it,” Papa replied.

Of course they wouldn’t know, not with the network being dark.

“You worried about your truck?” Papa said. “Want me to put it in the garage?”

Welga nodded and handed him the key to start it. If anyone in her family could operate a large vehicle, it was Oscar, with all his years of mech-wearing and construction work.

While he was gone, she turned all her fury on her brother. “If you leave your wife, you are the biggest fucking idiot on the planet. You knew she wasn’t going to be a good little Catholic when you married her, and you can’t expect her to act like one to spare your feelings.”

“Don’t advise me about marriage, Welga. You wouldn’t understand.”