Mag-log inChapter 109 Gawin She laughed, wet and shaky, and held onto my wrist with both hands now, leaning so far across the gap between the beds that her line pulled tight."I was so scared," she said. "I was so scared, Danny. When you started bleeding on the floor at her house. I didn't know what to do. I just held that towel and I kept thinking, I'm going to lose him, I'm going to lose my little brother on a kitchen floor in the middle of nowhere because some old woman wouldn't let a doctor in the room.""I know," I said."And then he wouldn't bite you. For weeks. He said it would make you a target. He said he'd rather you have seven months safe than fifty years hunted." Her face twisted. "I hated him for that. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to grab him by the shirt and make him do it. I never told you that.""You can tell me now.""I was so angry. I was so angry all the time. At him, at the doctors, at the old woman, at Mom and Dad for making us take those pills since we were babies
Chapter 108GawinJoss was snoring into my hip, and it was the most annoying, most wonderful sound I'd ever heard in my life.He'd fallen asleep sitting up in the plastic chair beside my bed sometime before dawn, and at some point his head had tipped sideways onto the mattress and stayed there, his cheek pressed against the blanket right next to my leg, his mouth open, one hand still curled loosely around my wrist like he'd been holding it when he went under and his fingers had forgotten to let go. His hair was sticking up in five different directions. There was still a scrape down the side of his face from the pit lane, dark red now and starting to scab. He looked terrible.I didn't want to move in case I woke him.So I just lay there and kept my other hand flat on my stomach and felt them.That was the strangest part. Not the hospital, or the bandage on my hand, or the soreness on the side of my neck where he'd bitten me. It was that I could feel them now. Not kicks. Not flutters. S
Chapter 107Joss"Now?" I said. "Right now? Here?"Dr. Halvorsen didn't blink. "Right now. Here."I looked down at Gawin. He was lying flat on his back with his face wet and his hair stuck to his forehead, a needle taped into the back of his hand and a line running up to a bag of fluid hanging off the lamp stand. My mother's hands were still spread on his stomach. Her eyes were still closed. Her scent was still seeping out of her into the room, slow and old and sweet, and under the blanket the red stain wasn't spreading anymore, but it wasn't shrinking either."You said no strain," I said. "Yesterday. You said nothing, not for days.""I know what I said yesterday. Yesterday he wasn't bleeding like this." Her voice stayed level, but I could see her hand shaking around the scanner. "Your mother's buying us time. Your scent's buying more. But it's not stopping, Joss, and every minute it doesn't stop, he's losing blood he can't afford to lose. The ambulance is still twenty minutes out. I
Chapter 106GawinMy hand was already reaching across the bed for him before my eyes were even open, and it landed on nothing but cold sheet.I sat up so fast the room spun. The lamp on the counter was still on. Dr. Halvorsen's chair by the door was empty, her coat slipped off it onto the floor. The monitor in the corner was glowing green, humming quietly to itself. And the side of the bed where Joss had been sitting all night, where he'd been sitting when I fell asleep, was flat and smooth like nobody had ever been there at all."Joss?"Nobody answered.I breathed in. His scent was still in the room, but it was faint, and it was getting fainter even while I sat there, thinning out like smoke after somebody opens a window. I could follow it to the door with my nose. It went out into the hallway and kept going."Joss!"The door opened. Boston was standing there with his phone in one hand and his face so white I knew before he said a single word."Hey," he said. "Hey, Gawin, it's okay,
Chapter 105JossBoston turned around. Arnold was in the doorway in a hospital gown, holding onto the frame with both hands, his face still flushed and wet."Arnold, get back in bed," Boston said."Mr. Whitlock," Arnold said, louder, ignoring him. "It's not his fault. I've been on pills for twelve years. If it wasn't Joss, it would've been something else. It would've been a bad batch, or a missed dose, or one day my body just would've stopped listening. Joss didn't do this to me. My dad did. The rules did. Don't take it out on him."Nobody said anything.The line was quiet for so long I thought Whitlock had hung up."I'm sorry," he said finally, and his voice was very small. "I'm sorry. All of you. I mean that. But I'm the one who has to stand in front of the families of anybody who gets hurt. Security will be at the medical center in thirty minutes. Joss, they'll escort you to the circuit gate. You can come back once you're bonded and Dr. Halvorsen signs off that your scent has settl
Chapter 104JossGawin's hand was still on the right side of his stomach, even in his sleep.I'd watched him fall asleep a little after midnight, finally, after hours of lying there with his eyes open in the dark. One minute he was staring at the ceiling and the next his breathing had gone slow and deep, and his hand hadn't moved from that spot low on his right side. Right where the scanner couldn't reach. Right where my mother said she'd smelled Daniel.I sat on the edge of the bed and didn't touch it.He'd told me about the flutter around eleven. Quietly, not looking at me, like he was afraid I'd laugh. Just once, he said. Right there, under my hand. And I'd said that's good, that's really good, and kissed his forehead, and he'd looked at me like he could tell I didn't believe him.I didn't.I wanted to. I wanted to so badly my chest hurt. But I'd watched Dr. Halvorsen move that scanner over every inch of him for twenty minutes, and I'd heard nothing but static, and I'd seen the blo







