His eyes flick to meet mine. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.

I push myself up until I’m sitting, the quilt falling from my shoulders and pooling in my lap. I shiver, feeling dizzy and sick, but I shove the sensations away. “You’re the one who climbed the wall and fell in the river. They thought you were dead. You should’ve drowned.”

He drops his head a little, rubs the back of his neck with his hand. It’s such a familiar gesture that I stop breathing for a second. It’s something Elias always used to do. To buy time, to think, to figure out a way to swim through the awkward moments.

“I didn’t,” he finally says, and I almost want to laugh at his non-answer. But before I can react, before I can say anything or ask him to explain, he’s moving around the fire until he’s crouched in front of me.

He reaches out a hand, places it along my cheeks, rests his wrist on my forehead. I feel each scar on my face under his probing fingers. I yank my head away, setting off a sharp throb down my neck and a pounding against my skull.

“Your skin’s hot,” he says. His eyes are wary, his lips pressed thin.

“I’ve been lying in front of a fire,” I tell him testily, moving away and pulling the quilt up like a barrier between us. “Of course I’m hot. That happens with flames.”

He glances over my shoulder into the darkness with such intensity that I almost turn around. And then his chin drops to his chest. “Does it feel like …” He’s looking up at me as he struggles for the words. “Does it feel like fire in your veins?”

His question doesn’t make any sense to me. “What are you talking about?”

He focuses on his hands. “Inside,” he says. “Does it feel like you’re dying? Being eaten by heat?”

I push myself to my feet and stumble away from him. “What kind of question is that?” A wave of nausea hits me again and I press a hand to my stomach, the other to my head, trying to stop the world from spinning. I blink rapidly, Catcher and the light blurring and then sharpening.

“Annah—”

“No,” I cut him off. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Why are you asking me these things? What’s going on?”

He stands up, arms by his sides as if he’s trying to prove he’s not dangerous. I don’t fall for it. I scour the station, trying to figure out where I could run to get away. My stomach heaves again, throwing me off balance, and I stagger.

He steps forward to help me but I hold up my arms, warding him off. “Stay away from me,” I growl.

Something hardens in his eyes. “I need to know if you’re infected,” he says, his tone blunt.

It takes a moment for my mind to process the meaning of his words but they don’t make sense. “Why would I be infected?”