The Infinite Sea(94)

            “She’s lost eight pounds and twenty percent of her muscle mass. She’s on Diovan for the high blood pressure, Phenergan for the nausea, amoxicillin and streptomycin to keep her lymphatic system tamped down, but we’re still struggling with the fever,” Claire reports.

            “‘Struggling with the fever’?”

            Claire’s eyes cut away. “On the upside, her liver and kidneys are still functioning normally. A bit of fluid in her lungs, but we’re—”

            Vosch waves her off and steps up to my bedside. Bright bird eyes glittering.

            “Do you want to live?”

            I answer without hesitating. “Yes.”

            “Why?”

            The question takes me off guard for some reason. “I don’t understand.”

            “You cannot overcome us. No one can. Not if you numbered seven times seven billion when it began. The world is a clock and the clock has wound to its final second—why would you want to live?”

            “I don’t want to save the world,” I tell him. “I’m just hoping I might get the opportunity to kill you.”

            His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes glitter and dance. I know you, his eyes say. I know you.

            “Hope,” he whispers. “Yes.” Nodding: He’s pleased with me. “Hope, Marika. Cling to your hope.” He turns to Claire and Mr. White Coat. “Pull her off the meds.”

            Mr. White Coat’s face turns the color of his smock. Claire starts to say something, then looks away. Vosch turns back to me.

            “What is the answer?” he demands. “It isn’t rage. What is it?”

            “Indifference.”

            “Try again.”

            “Detachment.”

            “Again.”

            “Hope. Despair. Love. Hate. Anger. Sorrow.” I’m shaking; my fever must be spiking. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

            “Better,” he says.





65

            IT GETS SO BAD that night, I can barely make it through four innings of chaseball.

            XMEDS

            “Heard a rumor going around they took you off your meds,” Razor says, shaking the quarter in his closed fist. “True?”

            “The only thing left in my IV bag is saline to keep my kidneys from shutting down.”

            He glances at my vitals on the monitor. Frowning. When Razor frowns, he reminds me of a little boy who’s stubbed his toe and thinks he’s too big to cry.

            “So you must be getting better.”

            “Guess so.” Tap-tap on the bedrail.

            “Okay,” he breathes. “My queen is up. Look out.”

            My back stiffens. My vision blurs. I lean to the side and empty my stomach, what little is inside my stomach, onto the white tile. Razor leaps up with a disgusted cry, toppling the board.

            “Hey!” he shouts. Not at me. At the black eye above us. “Hey, a little help here!”

            No help comes. He looks at the monitor, looks at me, and says, “I don’t know what to do.”

            “I’m okay.”