The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,242

put it inside the girl, that person was not like anyone he knew; they did not seem to be from a world he was part of. He wondered if he should maybe get Elton, ask him what he thought. But the snores coming from the back of the hut told him this would be a waste of his energy.

When Michael opened the file, as he did in due course, he did it almost furtively, one hand raised before his eyes, which were peeking through his fingers.

THIRTY-THREE

A lucky stroke: approaching the Infirmary, Peter saw a single Watcher standing guard. He marched straight up the steps.

“Evening, Dale.”

Dale’s cross hung loosely at his side. He sighed with exasperation, cocking his head a little, giving Peter his good ear. “You know I can’t let you in.”

Peter craned his neck to look past Dale through the front windows. A lantern was glowing on the desk.

“Sara inside?”

“She left a little while ago. Said she was getting something to eat.”

Peter held his ground, saying nothing more. It was a waiting game, he knew. He could see the indecision moving through Dale’s face. At last he huffed in surrender and stood aside.

“Flyers. Just be quick about it.”

Peter stepped through the door and moved back into the ward. The girl was curled on the cot, her knees tucked against her chest, facing away. At the sound of his entry, she made no movement; Peter guessed she was asleep.

He positioned a chair by the cot and sat with his chin in his hands. Under the tousle of her hair, he could see the mark on her neck where Sara had cut away the transmitter—a barely detectible line, almost completely healed.

She roused then, as if to meet his thoughts, and shifted on the cot to face him. The whites of her eyes were moist and full, shining in the lamplight that leaked through the curtain.

“Hey,” he said. His voice felt thick in his throat. “How are you feeling?”

Her hands were pressed together, buried to her slender wrists in the crevice between her knees. Everything about the way she held her body seemed conceived to make her appear smaller than she was.

“I came to thank you, for saving me.”

A quick tightening of her shoulders under the gown. You’re welcome.

How strange it was, speaking this way—strange because it wasn’t so strange. He had never heard the sound of the girl’s voice, and yet he did not feel this as a lack. There was something calming about it, as if she had put aside the noise of words.

“I don’t suppose you feel like talking,” Peter ventured. “Like maybe telling me your name? We could start with that, if you want.”

The girl said nothing, indicated nothing. Why would I tell you my name?

“Well, that’s okay,” Peter said. “I don’t mind. We can just sit here.”

Which was what he did; he sat with her, in the dark. After a time, a slackness came into the girl’s face. More minutes passed, and without any further acknowledgment of his presence, she closed her eyes again.

As Peter waited in the quiet, a sudden weariness came over him, and with it a memory: of a night, long ago, when he had come into the Infirmary and seen his mother watching over one of her patients—just as he was doing now. He couldn’t remember who this person was or if, in fact, the memory was several memories, folded over one another. It could have been one night or many. But on the night he recalled, he had stepped through the curtain and found his mother sitting in a chair by one of the cots, her head tipped to the side, and knew she was asleep. The person on the cot was a child, a small form hidden in darkness; the only light came from a candle on a tray by the bed. He moved forward, not speaking; no one else was in the room. His mother stirred, tilting her face toward him. She was young, and healthy, and he was glad, so glad, to see her again.

Take care of your brother, Theo.

—Mama, he said. I’m Peter.

He’s not strong, like you.

He was jarred by voices outside and the clatter of the opening door. Sara strode into the ward, the lantern swinging from her hand.

“Peter? Is everything okay?”

He blinked into the sudden blaze. It took him a moment to reassemble his sense of where he was. He had slept only a minute, and yet it felt like longer. Already the memory, and the