They passed two nightshirt nurses who seemed too caught up gossiping to notice their presence. The air in the elevator was fever-hot. They stared like idiots at the Air France commercial on the screen. Thomas found himself looking for the embedded sexual cues that all advertisers used to catch wandering eyes. A millisecond glimpse up a business traveller's skirt. The background cleavage of two teenage backpackers stowing their overhead gear. All of it sealed with a family-friendly smile.

Like an idiot, Thomas found himself thinking, Come fly the fuckable sky…

The elevator doors rattled open.

Thomas beamed a tired smile at the neurological observation unit's duty nurse—a once-pretty woman named Skye, if he remembered correctly. He leaned over the counter to swallow as much of her periphery as he could. He could neither hear nor see Mia, which was a good thing.

'Professor Bible,' she said, her voice silky with compassion. She knew he was divorced, and with professional women now vastly outnumbering men—the 'Great Gender Role Reversal' the pundits were calling it—guys like Thomas, ones who had actually studied in college rather than turfing out in a haze of dope and video games, were something of a rare commodity.

He played the part. The exhausted father, the grieving father, desperate for feminine comfort and support. One who flirted because he had nothing else, no other spark to warm his thick, ringless fingers…

A monitor alerted her that Frankie had been disconnected. She looked up in almost comical alarm.

'Is that Frankie?' he asked with feigned horror.

'H-his sedative must have worn off.'

He chose that moment to swing the backpack onto the counter before her.

'Don't move!' he barked.

Of course she froze; it was instinct.

'You know about directed motion detectors, don't you, Skye?—don't nod! Just blink if you understand me.'

Two tears fell when she did so, inking her cheeks with mascara.

'Well, one of them is aimed right at you… and it's connected to a bomb in this bag. Any movement or loud noise could set it off. Even your lips. Do you understand?'

Again tears accompanied her blink. She was shaking like a little human centrifuge, enough to trigger a dozen shopping-mall doors. Nausea wheeled through Thomas—from the shame, he imagined, though Neil's pills had Saran Wrapped his every emotion.

He leaned back from the counter, slowly, as though scared of his own diabolical device. He saw Mia running down the hall with Frankie. He took his unconscious boy in his arms.

He held his little body tight. Kissed his cheek. Sobbed against his shaved scalp.

So long as I hold him. So long as I never let him go.