Oh God, I get a feeling I know what this is. “You got the bug from the kids.”
He doesn’t deny it. “But you didn’t,” he sort of grumbles, then says more softly, “I’m glad.”
“I rarely get sick. I’m immune. Been through all the diseases on the planet as a kid.”
He doesn’t contest that, and it takes all my concentration to get him up the stairs, stopping every couple of steps for him to catch his breath.
By the time we reach his bedroom, my arms and back are killing me from trying to support his weight, and he looks terrible, his eyes glassy and his face pale and beaded with sweat. His back is soaked, his skin burning the inside of my arm that’s wedged around his waist.
We stumble inside and make it to the bed, and he falls on it, dragging me down with him.
I disentangle myself and roll him on his back. “You’re burning up. We need to get the fever down.”
He only grunts, his eyes closing, like he’s too exhausted to care if he lives or dies.
But here’s the crux of the problem, right here:
I do.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Matt
Who the fuck hit me over the head with a shovel? Because that’s how this feels like. Hit me over the head, and then kicked me in the chest for good measure.
Or… I’m sick. Right.
Tay said so.
Haven’t been sick in ages. Not physically sick, not like this, except when I drank too fucking much, but even then… This is like rusty nails being hammered into my skull, into the back of my eyeballs, into every joint in my body.
Guess it was a long time coming. The total destruction of Matt Hansen.
“You will lose what she has lost,” a voice whispers in my ear—or maybe inside my mind. The room swims in my eyes every time I open them, so I shut them again, and drift like a log on a river, gently spinning. “You will lose what’s precious to you.”
What’s precious? What’s the most precious thing?
My kids.
And Octavia. Her touch, her voice.
No, no. This makes no sense.
Nothing makes sense.
The river current gets stronger, whisking me down, over rocks, between logs, and it’s getting colder. I can’t stop shivering.
“Tay,” I whisper, because she can warm me up. She can pull me out of the water.
The other option is the bottom of his river, with the fish and the dead things.
“I’m here,” she says, and some warmth re
turns to my body. Blankets, I think, being wrapped around me, and something cool is placed on my burning forehead. “Rest.”
No choice but to do what she says. I feel like I’ve been running forever. I’m so fucking tired, I just can’t… can’t go on like this.
“Then let go,” Emma says. She’s sitting on the bed beside me, dressed in one of her favorite dresses, a black one with white polka dots. Her hair is gathered at the back of her neck and her face is grave.