Sweat trickled down his forehead. He felt like every single person in the store was staring at him now. He looked down at his feet as he waited in line, suddenly afraid to meet anyone’s eyes. He should never have come into this store. The world was too dangerous, and his face had been plastered all over the NewsBops. He had no way of knowing who was on his side and who was against him, who’d been taken over and who hadn’t. Surely the folks in this tiny convenience store on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., had escaped the Mortality Doctrine. Right?

He suddenly had an undeniable need to get away. He wanted Helga and Bryson and Sar—

Sarah.

He swallowed, and all the pain came crashing back in.

“I’m sorry,” he said out loud, though he had no idea who he was talking to. “I’m sorry.” He stepped out of the line, looked down at the goods in his hands. It felt as if they’d suddenly quadrupled in weight. “I’m sorry.” He rushed to the nearest shelf and shoved all of his items next to a bin of MoonPies. “I’m sorry,” he said for the fourth time.

He ran to the door, opened it, heard the chime, stumbled out, and almost fell. A car was in the lot, its lights on, cutting luminescent barrels through the fog. It pulled to the entrance and the window rolled down. Bryson’s face appeared, and somehow Michael managed the slightest of smiles.

“Hop in, man,” Bryson said. “Head-clearing time is over. Time to be with your friends again.”

Michael had never been so happy to see Bryson. Never, not even after seeing him for the first time here, in the Wake.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, so quietly that he barely even heard himself say it; then he went to the back of the car, opened the door, and got in. Walter was driving, of course, and Helga sat next to Michael. They nodded at each other, saying so much more than they could have with words.

Walter gunned it and they drove off, Michael wondering to whom and for what exactly he was sorry.

To everyone, he thought. For everything.

CHAPTER 10

LEADERS OF NATIONS

1

Not much happened the rest of that afternoon and evening, which allowed Michael to nap on one of the beds in the adjoining hotel rooms they checked into. Bryson sat on the bed next to him, mostly staring absently into space. Michael knew his friend felt just as much pain at losing Sarah as he did, and probably the same guilt at not being able to make the other feel better. But at least they were together.

The most important thing I do now is put an end to this Tangent craziness, Michael told himself. The Hallowed Ravine. Somehow it all goes back to the Hallowed Ravine.