some reason, the words don’t come to me. Instead, Barclay and I stand side by side in silence for a long time. Elijah has several open sores on his body, wounds that never healed and have been gathering bacteria and festering for who knows how long. The doctor cleans and disinfects them, bandages or stitches them up. He hooks up an IV with fluids and painkillers, and Elijah passes out, probably his first real rest in weeks.
At some point the receptionist brings in a chair for me, and I sit down.
Barclay puts an arm on my shoulder, and I yawn, leaning on him for support.
Somewhere along the line, I’m tired enough that I fall asleep.
03:02:29:57
I wake up in my clothes, facedown in a pillow. The scratchy sheets are pricking at my skin, and my whole body is stiff and sore all over, like I ran a marathon.
Or like I escaped from a prison. The memories from last night rush back. After the hospital we came here and passed out for the night. We’re in a standard cheap motel room—two beds and a coffee maker. Elijah is on the other one. My backpack is on the floor between us, and Barclay is nowhere in sight.
I get up and move into the bathroom. I don’t look as bad as I’d expect.
There’s a nasty—and sore—bump on the back of my head and a ring of bruises around my neck, and most of my skin is red, like a bad sunburn.
I shed my clothes and turn on the shower so the water is cool but not quite freezing, and I stand underneath the faucet with my eyes closed and let the water beat against the top of my head and soak into my skin and hair.
I broke Elijah out of prison. But I also killed a man.
The guilt is so strong it’s suddenly hard to breathe. The overwhelming desire to hug my brother, thank Struz for everything he does for me, let Cecily boss me around—to be home—washes over me like a wave, and it’s like a dam inside me breaks. My eyes sting and my whole body shakes with sobs.
I killed a man. I stabbed him with a sharp piece of glass and watched his life drain away. Getting home can’t come fast enough.
When I get out of the bathroom, Barclay is there, and Elijah is awake. “How are you feeling?” Barclay asks.
I shrug.
He pulls something out of his backpack and hands it to me. When my fingers feel the metal, I know exactly what it is. The HM USP Match—the gun he gave to me when I first got to Prima. I try to shake my head and give it back. The last thing I want right now is a gun—not when all I can think about is the dead guard and how I was responsible for that—but Barclay won’t take it back.
“I need you to have my back,” he says, his voice quiet but firm.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to point the gun at someone, to pull the trigger if I need to.
Barclay steps closer to me, his voice low. “A human-trafficking ring is out there right now, snatching people—including your friend. They’ve bought their way into IA, and we’re the only ones trying to stop them. If you give up now, they win.”
I take a deep breath. I know he’s right. I don’t have time to fall apart or worry about what I’ve done. I think of Cecily and what she must be going through, pulled from our world, jabbed with a syringe, and taken through a portal. Barclay is her only hope of getting home. If something happens to him or even Elijah because I can’t get my shit together, I’ll have more deaths on my head.
Seeing my resolve, Barclay leaves the room. Elijah limps after him, but when he gets to the door, he looks back. “You did what you had to do,” he says.
I don’t exactly believe him, but I nod.
We head to a Seattle’s Best coffee shop. Barclay was right. This world is a lot like mine—or a lot like mine used to be.
“What are we doing here?” Elijah asks as we sit down at a table on the outside patio.
“I’m starving,” Barclay says as the waitress comes over. She speaks a different language, so Barclay orders for all of us. When she’s gone, he adds, “And we need a quiet place to talk.”
Elijah nods and looks at me. “So is Ben meeting us