to the lab right now and been done with you. Now I have to babysit you until Sunday.” He shakes his head and pushes past me, grumbling under his breath.
“Gee, thanks. But you’re the worst babysitter in the history of the world, Dreyden. Babysitters are supposed to be fun,” I say to his back, and then I stick out my tongue. Very thirteen-year-old.
He turns and strides up to me, eyes full of fire, not stopping until our noses nearly touch. I gulp and force myself not to step back. “Nothing about life is fun anymore, Fo,” he says. And then he leaves, feet thumping down the stairs.
I turn to the row of west windows and find the one with the least amount of broken glass below it and sit. The air is heavy with moisture and heat, clinging to my skin, gluing my hair to my scalp. My calves are worse, hot and itchy and sweaty beneath the cuffs. I sift through the glass shards littering the floor and pick up a long, triangular piece, wrapping it in the hem of my white T-shirt. And then I begin sawing just above my knee. The denim pops and tears against the glass. When I’ve made a sufficient hole, I tear the fabric, using the glass again to cut through the tough seams. And then the bottom half of my jeans separates from the top. I pull the cut denim over my shoe and stare at the glossy black metal encasing my calf.
“Stupid, stupid cuff,” I say, and chuck the cut-off piece of denim out the window.
I start on the other leg, hacking at the fabric with the glass until I can tear it from the rest of the pants. I chuck it, too, and then jab at the metallic cuff encasing my calf. I take a second good, hard jab with the glass, gouging the metal, and gasp. Instinctively, I throw down the glass. The T-shirt protecting my hand has a small circle of red on it. The red spreads through the fabric, saturating the fibers, growing. I pull the fabric from my hand, and blood seeps out of a gash in my palm. The sight makes me want to gag.
I stand on weak legs and hurry down the stairs. Bowen, sitting with his back against the wall, gun propped on his bent knees, facing the door, doesn’t look at me when I stop in front of him. His face is tight with anger, his brow furrowed.
“Bowen?” I say.
“What?” His eyes don’t leave the door.
“Do you have a first-aid kit?” My voice shakes. He looks up, still glowering.
“Why do you need a first-aid kit?” he asks. Blood escapes my cupped hand and drips between his boots. His gun is on the ground and he is on his feet, pulling my hand to his eyes. “How did you manage to get hurt? Wait here.” He lets go of my hand, and it falls limply to my side. Blood trickles down my fingers. “And keep your hand above your heart!”
I lift my hand to shoulder height, and blood trails down my arm and drips from my elbow. Bowen is gone for what feels like forever, a whole minute at least. When he comes back, he’s holding a white box with a red cross painted on it.
“Upstairs. It’s too dark down here,” he says, gripping my elbow.
On the second floor, he pushes me to sitting and opens the box. “This will hurt,” he warns, “but don’t cry out!” He crouches beside me and pulls my fingers flat, making the gash in my palm gape. With his teeth he tears open a small white packet—it looks like a sugar packet from a restaurant—and holds it over my hand. Our eyes meet. And then his face is over my palm, and he pours little round white beads that look like fertilizer into the open gash. They hiss when they touch blood, and then absorb it until they turn red. The beads expand and the bleeding slows. Pressure fills the wound. I gasp and squeeze my eyes shut. Unable to stay upright, I totter and fall to the side.
Fire laces my blood, spreading from my palm to my fingers and wrist. Ice follows, traveling all the way to my elbow. And then the pain is gone. I wiggle my fingers. It feels like a rock is wedged inside the cut, and I can’t make a fist. I take a deep breath and open my eyes. A knee