Then the girl did something he hadn’t expected at all. Aroused by some unknown purpose, she rose from her cot and moved to the sink. She primed the pump, three hard pushes, and filled a basin with water. This she carried back to the cot where Peter sat. She placed it on the dusty floor at his feet and took a cloth from the cart and sat beside him, bending at the waist to dip the rag in the water. Then she took his arm in her hand and began to dab the place where the sutures had been with the moistened cloth.

He could feel her breath on him, breezing over his damp flesh. She had unfolded the cloth against her open hand to increase the surface area. Her gesture was more thorough now, not a cautious dabbing but a smooth, even stroking motion, rubbing the dirt and desiccated skin away. An ordinary kindness, to wash his skin, and yet completely surprising: it was full of sensation, of memory. His senses seemed to have gathered around it, the feel of the washcloth on his arm, her breath on his skin, like moths around a flame. As if he were a boy again, a boy who had fallen and scraped his elbow and run inside, and she was washing him clean.

She misses you.

Every nerve in his body seemed to jump. The girl was holding his arm in a firm grip, immovable. Not words, not spoken words. The words were in his mind. She was gripping his arm; their faces were inches apart.

“What did you—?”

She misses you she misses you she misses you.

He was on his feet, lurching away. His heart was pounding in his chest like a great caged animal. He had backed with his full weight into some kind of glass cabinet, sending the contents spilling off the shelves behind him. Someone had stepped through the curtain, a figure at the periphery of his vision. For a moment his mind came mercifully into a wider focus. Dale Levine.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Peter swallowed, trying to answer. Dale was standing at the curtain, wearing a look of confusion, his emotions unable to coalesce around any single point in the unfolding scene. He shifted his face toward the girl, who was still seated on the cot with the basin at her feet, then looked at Peter again.

“She’s awake? I thought she was dying.”

Peter found his voice at last. “You can’t … tell anyone.”

“Flyers, Peter. Does Jimmy know about this?”

“I mean it.” He knew suddenly that if he didn’t leave the room at once he would dissolve. “You can’t.”