not, in fact, been eaten. Yes, it was something so much finer.
So Michael hardly heard the sound at first, barely audible through the steel door. Then he paid attention to it; and everything within him tumbled.
It was the shattering of the vials of the cure being destroyed by the Shriek.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Everything you do will be worth it in the end: You can control it.
One belief. One point on a compass. One guiding Instruction.
The belief had been Michael’s comfort, and his weapon, for a very long time. He’d walked with it inside himself through mountains that roared and hungered around him. He’d lain with it on nights Before, when he had to wrap a pillow around his head to erase the sounds of slamming doors or crashing dishes or tears. When Michael knew so many secret pains that he could share with no one, the thought, the belief, had talked to him. Comforting him unconditionally. Like a best friend. Or like a mother.
You can control it, Michael thought.
As he sat in the bank, the thought seemed far away. Weak. His ears were filled with roaring wind, like a television with the AV wires cut.
Glass breaking. Vials.
Day 27. Dear Diary, Today I was a foot away from the cure.
I almost made everything okay. I almost changed
everything for—
—for myself—
—for Patrick. But then I kind of messed up. LOL, actually, when you get right down to it, I pretty much effed the world.
No, said the thought. It will be okay.
Really?
Yes.
What about the shattering?
Michael screamed and roared and kicked at the money-cast floor, as if afraid the world would open a pit underneath him and swallow him whole. The oxygen vacuumed out of his lungs. His tongue was cracked sandpaper. I’m Freaking, Michael thought.
“WHAT THE?!” Patrick shouted.
Michael’s head turned slowly, as if on a screaming rusted hinge.
He looked past Patrick. The vault door. His blurry reflection. His own black mouth and screaming face, pale and blank as the moon. Michael saw himself and his throat tore with his scream and oh my God stop, Michael, seriously stop please, stop Freaking.
Gone, he thought. I lost. It’s gone it’s GONE.
Patrick scrabbled away from his brother. His mouth was quivering, his hands went to his hair.
“Michael, you okay?” he said. “Hey, are you—?”
Michael stopped screaming, not because he’d regained control, he’d just run out of breath.
Tell Bub everything is okay, even though you just accidentally locked the monster in with the only things that can save you and Bub, his mind said—Instructed.
Patrick blinked at Michael, then yanked, hard, on a hunk of his own hair.
Tears leapt to Michael’s eyes. He shot to a stand, his stomach going hot and loose with shame and terror. Patrick ripped at his hair again. He whined in his throat, his face smashing down in pain.
Yes, tell him everything will be okay, Michael. You’re so good at promising, aren’t you, asshole? But how are you going to lie your way out of this?
Michael lifted a hand that seemed to weigh seven tons. He made a thumbs-up.
Inside the vault, he could hear Shriek-Hank really going to town.
“Don’t do that, Bub,” Michael said. It was all he could manage.
“Why’s you screaming?” Patrick looked him up and down, as if trying to decide if he recognized a stranger. “Why’s . . . ? Did you get a splinter?”
Michael clapped a hand on his mouth. Hysterical laughter had nearly ejected. Then he understood Patrick’s question, and felt like doing anything but laughing.
Asking if I got a splinter because he’s never seen me like that. He thought I was . . . his Safe Zone. He didn’t know I could lose it like that.
Oh, his mind hissed, but there’s a lot Patrick doesn’t know about you.
Suddenly, Patrick looked away, turning toward the tunnel across the dark of the lobby. “Hey, Game Master!” he called.
“Bub, wait.” Michael’s voice came out as a croak.
“But . . . you’re hurt?” Patrick began. He uncertainly stepped away as Michael came closer. He gulped, and now his voice was a little plea: “Michael, you’re hurt, right?”
Everything is still okay, right?!
“I—”
“Michael!”
Holly.
Small and muffled from beyond the mountain of rubble. She’d never made it through the tunnel.
Patrick stood there between his big brother and the tunnel, and he shifted foot-to-foot, in a heartbreaking dance of gathering dread.
“Michael got hur—I mean, the Betrayer got hurt, Holly!” he called desperately to the tunnel. “Time out, Game Master!” Whispering: “And we can still quit real soon. Right? Michael?”
And when Michael didn’t reply, Patrick pivoted and cried toward the