Evan sat up. With mounting frustration he looked at the new dead bolts, the welded cage of the balcony. He forced a swallow down his sandpaper throat. “No, I’m…”

He was at a loss for how to complete the sentence.

“Why won’t you?”

“I … I can’t right now.”

Static flared up, and Evan prayed the line wouldn’t cut out. How fragile his connection to the world, to what his life had been.

“Try,” the boy said. “You have to try.”

“I did. I am.”

“The girl said you take care of people who need help,” the boy said. “I should’ve known it was fake.”

“It’s not fake,” Evan said. “I’m not fake.”

Crackling on the line rendered the boy’s response inaudible.

Evan made a fist, pressed it against his thigh. Hard. “I just … I just don’t know how to help you right now.”

“It’s all lies and stories,” the boy said. “No one saves anyone.”

Breathing in powdered sugar and sunscreen at the Veterans Day parade, Jack’s warm hand resting on Evan’s coat-hanger shoulder. Pavarotti’s nine high Cs washing over them in the fire-warm study. The hard part is staying human. The view from the window of a dormer room that was his and only his.

“Yes. They do.” Evan couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten choked up. It felt bizarre, out of control.

In the silence he could hear the boy breathing across the phone.

“You’ll forget me,” the boy finally said. “Everyone does.”

“No. I won’t.”

The voice grew even quieter, barely a whisper. “You have to remember me.”

Heat burned beneath Evan’s face. “I will.”

The connection cut in and out, stealing the boy’s words. “… have to … be too late…”

As Evan strained to hear, a noise came from outside, a resonant thumping.

A sound he knew all too well.

He threw his legs over the side of the bed, willed himself to stand. His knees felt wobbly, his skull filled with concrete.

The noise grew louder, vibrating the walls, the floor beneath his feet, the flesh on his bones. He was unsure if the vise pinching his temples was a headache or just dread tightening its grasp on him.

“Listen,” he said into the phone. “Hold up. Just … hang on.”

He dropped the RoamZone onto the bed and stumbled to the balcony. The frosty air hit him full force, but the snow had vanished, leaving the night as clear as glass.

Two glowing dots approached through the sky, one red, one green.

Collision-avoidance lights.

The helicopter banked and set down on the patch of cleared ground between the chalet and the barn. A door swung open, and a man emerged onto the makeshift helipad, a black hood tied over his head.