“Hey,” I said, “did you hear the part about the sword?”

“I’m looking at it right now, hon,” she said. She probed it gently with a small instrument and dabbed it with an antiseptic wipe. “Well,” she said in her most professional tone, “I’ve never treated a sword wound before, but you’re right, this one is infected. And old. How long ago did it happen?”

“About midnight,” Jordan said, flinching when Mom poked the red, swollen skin around the cut.

“He said he walked all the way back from the plant and got here around four in the morning.”

Mom stood up. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. You should have called someone for help, though.”

“That’s why we tried the army hospital.”

“Next time try the police.” She placed her hand on Jordan’s forehead. “And I’ll remember to leave you a note where I’m going next time. But come on, running a roadblock?”

I told her everything that had happened, with Jordan adding a few details here and there, though he was fuzzy on much of it.

“I told you we couldn’t trust the army,” he said.

“Well, they got you home safely,” Mom pointed out.

“Yeah, and they know where to find me when they need me.”

I turned to Mom. “Did I mention that Jordan said he shot the guy who stabbed him with his sword arm?”

“You shot someone?” she asked Jordan.

“Three times in the chest. But I don’t think I killed him.”

“Why did you have a gun?”

“There’d been a scuffle.”

Mom gave me a look. She didn’t believe what she was hearing, either.

“Hang on a minute,” she said, and went into another room, returning with a small tray of supplies. She got to work on Jordan’s leg.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “The knife—sword—went in vertically, not horizontally, with the grain, if you want to think of it that way. It should heal pretty cleanly, though I doubt you’ll be playing football for a couple weeks.”

Jordan nodded. “Great.”

“This is going to sting a little,” Mom said as she shoved an alcohol-soaked piece of gauze deep into the blood- and dirt-flecked wound.

Jordan howled. “Hey, let me know when something’s going to sting a lot,” he said.

Mom smiled. Sometimes I think doctors get off on that whole “sting a little” thing.

I ran my fingers through Jordan’s tight curls, noticing the spidery scars on his scalp. This guy had been through a lot. I wanted to kiss the top of his head but still felt too self-conscious in front of my mom.

“I know you two don’t believe me, but the scientist told me things,” Jordan said. “They experimented on me, made me into some kind of superhuman. He said the Carters’ fire was meant to be a test of my skills.”

“What?” I asked. I hadn’t heard this.

“Apparently I passed,” he said, and talked about how he was able to breathe and run despite the smoke, how innocent people had been sacrificed for this exercise. As he went on, his eyes opened wider and wider, and sweat beads emerged on his forehead. I nodded at my mom, whose face betrayed no expression.