I reached down to push myself up, though my limbs felt remote, cold and shaky. Before I could do more than place my palm on the floor, a familiar voice said, “Don’t try to move.”

My scrambled brain could not place the voice, only knew that I knew it. I let myself lie back down, cheek to the floor, sticky with my blood.

A flashlight flared; the speaker stepped over me and crouched down so that I could see his face. Lying sideways, still blinking agony out of my eyes, I did not at first recognize him. Then my brain pieced together all the features, wiped away the unrecognizable covering of dirt and blood.

“Good,” Benny said, when he saw me staring. “You’re awake.”

CHAPTER SIXTY SIX:

An Old Friend

If this was another dream, it was a lot more uncomfortable than the last few. I swallowed blood and said, “What?”

Benny grimaced. He reached out of my narrow field of vision and when he returned, he was holding a water bottle, dented and half-empty. “Think you can sit up?”

He was speaking Sister. I’d never been so glad to hear Sister in my life.

Benny helped me sit up, drink some of the water. I felt weak all over, shaky. There was no telling how long I had been unconscious, but my blood had dried in stages on the floor, so it looked like I had been bleeding for most of that time. Lucky I hadn’t fallen on my back, or I would’ve probably choked to death on a nosebleed. There was no sign of the Dreamer-bots at all.

Indigo and Lantern-Eyes. I twisted around until I could see the door to the little room, dimly lit by Benny’s flashlight. It was shut, but the Dreamer-bots had repaired the locking mechanism I’d shattered. “Hey,” Benny said sharply when I pushed myself upright, struggling against unsteady limbs, and quickly unlocked the door.

The door slid into the room, exposing the little room, and the emptiness inside.

There was a bloodstain on the floor where I’d set Indigo down, but no body. No pack, either—Tamara and Indigo had left under their own power, with enough time to take supplies with them.

They’d left some supplies behind, though. Just a few packages, neatly stacked.

Indigo had probably convinced Tamara to leave them behind for me, I imagined. She wasn’t sentimental enough to leave behind food for a dead man in case he came back to life, but Indigo, I thought, might. Unless this sad small pile of food constituted some sort of Ministerial offering to the dead. To you who have died, from I who shall not.

I took a step or two into the room and sat down heavily beside the dried blood.

“Hey, nice.” Benny’s voice echoed overhead. He’d followed me in and was now examining the little pile of supplies, knocking them out of order as he sorted through for something he liked. I let my head drop back against the wall while I caught my breath.