“Tarren, we’re all getting out of this, because…because….” The thought just pops through my head. “…because it’s my fucking birthday.” Okay, so technically yesterday was my birthday, but Tarren doesn’t argue. “I’m getting Maya out and then I’m dragging your ass out of this place, k?” It’s not really a question. I gather Maya up in my arms, look at her sweet little face. Whatever it takes, I’ll bring you back, I think.

  “Does Tarren need help? I’ll go in, get him,” Chain says.

  “No. We need cover getting out,” I order. “Stay where you are.”

  “Feed her as soon as you can,” Tarren says in that soft whisper. “Keep her drugged though. She won’t be…won’t have control in the beginning.” He pants like this little spiel took all his breath.

  “If anyone comes through this door who isn’t me, shoot them,” I tell him. “I’ll be back soon.”

  I hug Maya gently to my chest, fearful of crushing her tiny body. I’m so damn sorry I made all those earlier one true birthday wishes, because now the only thing I want in this whole damn universe is for us to all get out of this terrible bloody mess still breathing. We’re so damn close.

  I rush down the stairs daring anyone to try at me now. Underneath Maya, I’ve still got my Beretta poised and ready. I hear one or two voices, faint in the other rooms, but the house is still almost empty. A shame after all that work to pack the basement with explosives.

  It’s okay, though. We got what we came for.

  I see the front door. It hangs open.

  “Coming out. Cover me!” I holler.

  As soon as I rush out into the bright day, the rifles start up, four booming cracks overlapping each other. I veer east, making for Rain’s position. The rifles are so loud that I can barely hear the paltry small arms fire around me from the remaining defenders of the house. My team must be keeping the heat on them, because only one bullet whizzes close to my face.

  “I see you!” Rain hollers.

  The trees are growing nearer. So close. I run. With every ounce of energy still left in my body, I run. My breath is tearing in and out of my body. My legs are crying, but I don’t pay them any fucking mind.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Guns erupting all around me. Then I feel the kiss of shade, and I’m crashing through low branches. Rain is calling, and I see him, already astride the growling four wheeler. His mouth drops open when he sees what’s in my arms. I hold Maya out to him, and as soon as he takes her nothing weight, I pull my coat off and wrap it around her.

  “Gabe, she looks…” Rain’s face is about ten shades paler than normal, and he grips her tight like she might just disintegrate if he lets up the pressure.

  “She’s tranqed. Go. Now!”

  I turn back toward the house, toward Tarren. I pull in a breath, force my legs to move. I’m out of the tree line.

  “Running out of ammo,” someone calls over the com.

  “Find some,” I yell. “Keep me covered. I’m going back—”

  I don’t know what happens next. A noise. A great, huge noise, and then I’m on the ground. Ears ringing. The bright blue sky is listing above me. And it’s raining. Something hits my knee. I feel the dull pain of it far away as I try to sit up. I turn my head, see Rain just a few yards back. He crouches over Maya, shielding her. The four wheeler is on its side. Black rain. Chunky rain. Something lands next to me. A smoking piece of wood.

  I force myself to sit up. My hair is in my face, and I pull it out of my eyes. Lost my lucky hat, I think in an oddly analytical way as I stare at the scene in front of me. The house is still there, but it looks like it magically aged 1,000 years. It lists forward on its foundations, the front side partially collapsed. Every window is blown out, and thick, oily smoke rises up out of the front door.

  I watch it, curious for a while. Then it starts clicking. One little puzzle piece at a time.

  Explosion.

  Explosives.

  My explosives.

  The second detonator…

  “TARREN!” My legs are slipping under me, but I’m moving forward, first crawling, then lurching to my feet. “TARREN!”

  World. Breaking. Crumbling. Just like the house. But no. He got out. One true birthday wish. He had to get out.

  “TARREN!” I stumble, get up, and then I’m running. Running toward the house. “TARREN!”

  Can’t. Be. Happening. Not now. Not after we just got Maya back.

  The house begins to buckle. Wood shrieking. Collapsing within itself.

  “NO! NO! NO! TARREN! TARR—“ I go down hard, my teeth clapping together. I try to get up.

  “No!” A voice in my ear. Body on top of me. “Honey, you can’t go in there.”

  But I have to. I have to get Tarren out. I told him I would. I promised.

  “NOOOOO!” I howl and buck Rattlesnake off me. Then another weight is on me, pinning my arms.

  “There’s nothing left,” Rain pants in my ear.

  I drag myself forward with him on top of me, even as the house buckles from within. Rain shifts, and now he and Rattlesnake each have one of my arms. The stench of burning wood and insulation hits me. I thrust forward again and again, but together they begin dragging me back.

  And then my body just loses it. Everything collapses, my knees, elbows, shoulders, heart. Because nothing could have survived that explosion, and Tarren was too weak to get out.

  I scream and scream and scream.

  Part Four

  Chapter 33 – Maya

  I am lost for a long, long time. Entombed deep in sand. It smoothers my face, weighs down my eyelids, turns hot, and floods my shoulders and wrists. My dreams are strange and terrifying, shapes and screams and gunshots. I hear Tarren say, “Please,” in a torn whisper. I feel energy soaring up through my palms as I watch Gabe drop out of my grip, his head cracking open on the concrete floor over and over after I’ve drained the life out of him.

  Sometimes I am in a bed, and Gabe is sitting next to me. I can’t get my eyes open, but I feel his aura. Once I think I hear him crying from far away. Another time, Karen, my adoptive mother, sits on the bed. She lifts me up and tips a glass of water to my lips.

  This happens again and again – jolts of energy that pull me into foggy consciousness, and then losing my grip and falling back into the abyss as soon as the energy abates. Until I wake up and am too hungry to sleep anymore. The song claws at me. Am I still in that tiny room with the slanted roof? Still left to chase a sliver of sunlight over the floor? I can barely get my eyes open, but I know my arms are cuffed behind my back. I cry a little, but mostly I can’t be bothered to care. I just want to go back to sleep. Get the song out of my head. I wonder if there’s anything I can say that might convince them to just kill me.

  Heather is kind. Maybe she will slip a knife through my ribs if I beg. Gradually, I come to realize that I’m in a bed. A stranger’s bed. A scratchy, colorful quilt tangles around my waist and legs. The door opens, and an aura walks in. A human. I snap to attention.

  Energy, energy, energy.

  I try my wrists again, giving them a long, steady pull, past the point where black, pain-filled dots float in front of my eyes, but it’s useless. I recognize the face within the soft glow of energy.

  “Gabe.” My voice is hoarse, filled with sand.

  “Right answer,” he says. “Good to see you awake.”

  I have questions, but they melt like snowflakes against the pinkish throb of his energy. I have to get to him somehow. This is Gabe. Sweet, trusting Gabe. Easy.

  “You cuffed me,” I say.

  “Yep. Precaution. You were out of your mind for a while there.”

  “I’m fine now,” I announce. “You can let me go.”

  “Nice try. Well, actually it wasn’t. Charlie Sheen looks stable compared to you.”

  My mind is fog and shards of glass as I desperately try to fumble together a plan.

  “I need a bath,” I say. This is good. This is clever. And it’s even true. My body is sticky and disgusting. My hair hangs limp in my eyes.

  “You want a bath? Fine. I suppose you could use one.” Gabe walks through a door across the room. My eyes wander around. The room decor is a weird mix of brawny log cabin and grandma. I note the log bed posts, the taxidermy fish on every wall, and the creepy antique dolls sitting on the dresser staring at me with accusing eyes. The sound of water churning out of old pipes starts up from the open doorway. While Gabe is gone, I kick hard out of the homespun quilt. My legs are clumsy, heavy, and it takes me a moment to realize why.

  “You tied my ankles, too,” I accuse as Gabe returns from the bathroom.

  He actually chuckles at that, but it isn’t a pleasant sound. “You look like the world’s drunkest mermaid. Here. Move your legs over the bed, and I’ll cut the ties.”

  I obediently scoot down. My whole body trembles as I stare at his aura, all those delicious pinks and reds swirling through the matrix around him.

  “Lie all the way down,” Gabe instructs, “on your back.”

  This forces me to pin my own arms down. I could quickly sweep them over my feet to bring my arms out in front of me, but then I’d scare him off. No. I have to be sneakier.

  I do as told.

  Gabe approaches warily, and soon I feel him sawing through the plastic binds that press my ankles together. I wait for his eyes to fall on his task, but they never do. They stay right on my face, and I notice the deep shadows of exhaustion beneath them.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  The bindings snap, and Gabe steps back quickly. “There you go.”

  I sit up slowly and straighten my legs one at a time to test them. Tendrils of pain bite into my right thigh as I straighten that leg. My wrists ache.

  “How many ties did you use?” I ask.

  “Eight. Five was probably enough, with your cond…” He stops, swallows. “But I had extra, so…” Gabe shrugs. I wait for him to come and help me rise, because this is Gabe. Full of love. Full of weakness.

  “Well, come on,” he says. He walks to the foot of the bed, so that he is behind me when I stand up. I list dangerously to the side, seeing if he’ll step up to steady me.

  “That was a little better,” Gabe says. “Walk.”

  For a moment I forget which brother is in the room with me. The wary edge in his voice makes me think it’s Tarren, but when I turn and look, Gabe is the one standing behind me.

  “I can’t think very well,” I say.

  “I’ve been keeping you doped up for the last two days.” Another short pause. “It’s the best way to get you better without any more incidents.”

  “Incidents?”

  “Let’s just say a rabid wolverine would have made a more pleasant passenger on the drive here than you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur, because it seems like the thing I should say. My legs are dead, heavy things, especially the right leg. I look down and see fresh white tape around my thigh. “Oh yeah, I got shot,” I murmur.

  “They sewed it up pretty good. It’s starting to heal again,” Gabe responds.

  They. Cloudy memories. That tiny, tiny room with the single window. Fear spikes up my spine. No! I am here now, in a room with stupid fish on the wall. Gabe is with me. Everything must be okay, because Gabe is here. I take feeble steps, unbalanced because of my arms. Finally, my toes hit the sweating tiles of the bathroom floor. I breathe in the steam-heavy air.

  “Gabe, I won’t hurt you, I’m in control,” I say, and a part of me believes this. A whole lot more of me wants to believe this but doesn’t. “Can you cut me out of these things? It won’t take me too long. You can tie me back up as soon as I’m done.”

  “Better and better,” Gabe says. “You just gotta’ lower your eyes so I can’t see how desperate you are for a fix.”

  “I’m not a junkie!” I snap.

  “Uh-huh.”

  When he pulls out his knife, I think that I’ve convinced him; that he’s going to set me free. I can’t stop staring at his energy. I need it so badly.

  “Stand absolutely still or we aren’t doing this thing,” Gabe says. He moves in front of me so that we face each other.

  “Where’s your hat?” I ask. His caramel hair is dark and greasy and falls wild around his face. This is when I realize that Gabe looks terrible. His eyes are red and sunk into bruised hollows. His jaw is unshaven. Why has Tarren allowed him to get to this state?

  Gabe slips the blade under the strap of my sports bra.

  “What? No, don’t do that.” I step back.

  “You want a bath, I’m getting your clothes off. Nothing I haven’t seen before…not your um, but other girls, I mean.”

  “Don’t, don’t.” I take another step back.

  “Well okay.” Gabe shrugs. He looks thin beneath the faded t-shirt and ripped jeans he wears.

  “The cuffs. Take off the cuffs,” I whine.

  “That’s not going to happen, Maya, so stop asking.”

  I do want a bath. The water is steaming hot. “Okay, I’ll go in like this,” I say. I look down at myself, but I don’t recognize the concave tummy, the stick legs. This isn’t me. I start to sniffle. How can this be me?

  “I know,” Gabe says, and his voice sounds tired. “But you’ll get better.” He turns and stops the water.

  I could lunge at him, right now, throw my body into him, get my hands on his aura. But just as soon as I form the plan, he turns back to me, eyes sharpening as if he can read the thoughts right out of my head.

  All he says is, “It’s ready. Be careful getting in.”

  This is a slow and painful procedure. I almost fall as I try to lower myself into a sitting position, and it’s not an act. The trial is worth it. The hot water sears the wound in my right thigh, but when that sharp pain fades, I feel the heat soaking through me. I let out a long, deep sigh before plunging under.

  Gabe rolls up his pant legs and steps in the tub with me.

  “Stand still,” he says softly when I’ve made it to my feet again. He soaps me up with a wash cloth, rubbing small circles up and down my arms and legs. He keeps the cloth a safe distance from my private parts and only soaps the top of my back. He doesn’t get anywhere near my hands.

  I feel his aura so close. The noise of it clangs in my head, making me tremble. Gabe ignores my whimpers. He steps out of the tub, and I carefully sit down again. I lean my head back over the edge of the tub, and Gabe massages shampoo into my knotted hair. This is so close, too close. Every muscle inside of me clutches and aches to feed.

  Gabe’s breath is stale. Even with my eyes closed to avoid the suds, I can feel the sluggish pull of his energy.

  “You’re drunk,” I say.

  “Not drunk enough.”

  “Where’s Tarren?”

  His energy jolts, reeling up in high arcs. I spasm with need, pushing wildly against the tub, trying to stand, trying to twist to get to him.

  Energy, ENERGY! Need it!

  Gabe presses my shoulders down, and his grip is steady and strong.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he mutters beneath the chaos. The strength ebbs away from his energy as he pulls his emotions under control.

  I pant after it passes. My right thigh throbs

  Finally, Gabe removes his sudsy fingers from my shoulders. “Come on, duck under. You’re as clean as you’re gonna get.”

  When I’m washed, Gabe wraps a towel around my shoulders and marches me back to the bed.

  “I have some food for you,” he says. “I need you to lie down on the bed on your back and stick your legs out for me.”

  “No. You’re going to put the cuffs back on.”

  Gabe looks at me. Something has changed inside of him, and I’ve finally figured out what it is. I don’t see any shades of his special blue, no beautiful sapphires.

  “It’s just for a little while. Until…until you’re you again,” he says.

  “I am me,” I say. Then I realize that he said the word food. All of my priorities shift. What food? What does he have? I remember his instructions and flop down on my back. He pulls more plastic ties out of his pocket and cinches them around my ankles, tighter than he needs to. So many ties. Eight, nine…I lose count.

  “What happened?” I’m crying again. There seems no dam to my emotions. They flare up suddenly, overwhelming. I remember Heather. Her golden hair. Her warm hands clutching mine as we prayed together. Then Gem. His sweet thoughts of Molly. His head heavy in my lap.

  Tears crawl down the side of my face. One runs into my ear, making me flinch. This isn’t a trick, except a part of it is. I want Gabe to come closer, to wrap me in his arms, and tell me everything will be okay. I also want to take all of his energy away from him, leave him iced on the floor.

  “All that matters now is getting you better,” Gabe says as he steps back. “I’ll explain everything later, but you can’t worry about that right now.”

  “Where’s Tarren?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “You’re lying. I can’t feel him in the house. His energy isn’t here.”

  “He went running then.”

  “Gabe, tell me the truth.”

  “I’ll get the mice.”

  And I forget again, because Gabe is getting me food. Food, food, food, food. After a long, impossible wait, he reappears with three small orbs of energy in his hands. I think I recognize those orbs from my dreams.

  “I drugged them,” he says. “I’m going to put the mice right in front of you, and then you just need to roll over and grab them, okay?”

  I don’t understand his words, only the energy in his hands. My food. I nod desperately. Then they are on the bed, and Gabe is stepping quickly away.

  The monster takes over. I feed, and the bliss holds me, turns the song quiet. But it is gone so soon, throwing me violently back into the world. The monster is angry.

  “More,” I demand.

  “No, that’s—“

  “MORE! MORE! MOOOOOOORE!” I scream, wrestling against my bonds.

  “You’ve had—“

  “MOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!” I hit the floor hard, the impact sharp against my hip.

  “Maya, please,” Gabe says, “don’t do this.”