Brightly (Flicker #2) (51 page)

Instead of listening to the rest of what Clementine had to say, Lee got up and went into the kitchen. Alice sat at the table, drumming her fingers. Jason paced. For a while, Lee paced with him.

Clementine disappeared upstairs soon after that, while Henry headed for the basement, where Filo had retreated. While he was down there, Lee heard muffled yelling. It sounded like Filo’s voice, but separated by a flight of stairs and the basement door, it was hard to tell. Henry reappeared a few minutes later, looking dejected.

As the night wore on, Lee grew tired. She couldn’t remember ever being this tired, but she refused to sleep. Over the past several hours, she had convinced herself that Nasser would die unless she remained constantly alert, that she could somehow keep him alive if she only willed it hard enough.

It was almost midnight when she stepped onto the porch. Alice and Jason were in the basement, Henry and Clementine were somewhere upstairs, and Davis and Amelia were still in the only place Lee wanted to be.

Filo was sitting on the porch swing.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Lee said. “It’s cold.”

“I know.”

He made no move to get up, though, so she went back inside, grabbed a blanket from the couch and rejoined him on the porch. The swing rocked gently when she sat beside him. She draped the blanket around his shoulders; to his surprise, he didn’t shrug her off. Instead, he sighed and raised one arm, holding the blanket out. His knuckles were bruised.

“If you’re going to stay,” he said, “you might as well.”

She scooted closer to him and pulled half the blanket around herself. “Did you punch a wall or something?”

“Or something.” Filo’s voice was dull.

“Before or after you yelled at Henry?”

Looking down, he mumbled, “After.”

For a while, they sat in silence. Lee stared ahead, studying the way the houselights fell across the grass like fingers grasping toward the trees. She tried to think of how she would paint the scene—everything smeared together and indistinct, maybe, dark colors with a few streaks of light—but she couldn’t concentrate. Her heart was upstairs.

Beside her, Filo shifted. “You saw that memory, didn’t you?”

“I—” Lee flushed, suddenly embarrassed, like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to see it.”

“It’s okay.”

She was thrown. She had expected him to be angry. Some piece of her
wanted
him to be angry. Arguing with Filo would be a welcome respite from sitting in silence, fear gnawing her insides, but he didn’t seem to have a fight left in him.

She knew she should drop it, but when she thought of the memory she’d witnessed, she couldn’t bring herself to. “What did they do to you?”

“You know what they did.”

“But
why?
”

At first, he didn’t answer. He didn’t look at her, either. “It was about two years ago, the morning after Alice left. Nem and Morgan already knew she was gone. They didn’t ask where she was. It would be easy for them to find her. They just wanted me to know that she was going to be punished for what she’d done—for what I
let
her do. She left, and I didn’t stop her.”

“When you say, ‘punished,’ you mean…”

“They would’ve killed her.”

Lee went very still. “How can you be sure?”

He shook his head. “You never saw them like that. They were so angry.”

“I saw them get pretty angry last year.”

“Not like that,” Filo said, his voice small.

Lee didn’t say anything to that.

“An apprentice leaving like that is a betrayal and an insult,” he went on. “When Nasser and Jason left, Nem convinced Morgan to leave them alone, see how things turned out, like it was a game or something. I think Morgan hoped they would starve or get murdered in a mugging or something, and she was always disappointed that they didn’t. When it came to Alice, Morgan wanted blood. She wasn’t going to let the insult go. Punishing Alice for leaving was their right. It was like a debt, a payment they were owed. I just had to convince them to let me pay instead.”

“And they did,” Lee said softly.

Filo nodded. “My whole life, I knew Morgan could end me any time she wanted to. She made sure I knew. But that morning was the only time I ever thought she would actually do it.”

He spoke calmly, as if he were telling a story that had happened to someone else. Lee felt sick. She thought of his condition in the memory: the cuts and bruises, the way he flinched away from Neman’s hand. He had looked so young, she thought, like a child.

Then again, he wasn’t much older now. Even after all this time, Lee didn’t always remember to see him as he was, under the bristles and hostility: a sad, serious boy who wouldn’t let anyone close enough to touch him.

“I never told anyone about what happened,” Filo intimated. “Alice doesn’t know why Nem and Morgan left her alone. She thinks they just weren’t interested in her anymore. She thinks it was a whim.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

“Because she’d never forgive me. You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“How’s Nasser?” Filo asked, in a low voice.

Lee sighed wearily. “I don’t know. Amelia’s still working on him. The last time Davis came out, all he said was that she was pumping antibiotics into him.”

“He should’ve let that bear have me,” Filo muttered.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. It was a stupid decision. He’d be fine, if he hadn’t gotten between.”

“Filo—”

“When we all lived together, he used to get between us and Morgan, too. I hated when he did that. We always got the beating, anyway. The only difference was that he got one, too, and he didn’t have to. I don’t know why he’s like that.”

“Because he cares about you,” Lee said softly. “He cares about you three more than he cares about himself. He always has.”

Filo flinched, like she’d hurt him. He didn’t speak after that, and they sat together in the darkness for a long time.

When Lee felt a hand on her shoulder, she vaulted out of sleep, her heart already galloping. She didn’t remember falling asleep in the first place, but there was a crick in her neck, her eyes were bleary and sunlight streamed through the windows. A glance at the clock told her that it was just after eight o’clock.

Jason sat on the edge of the coffee table next to the couch where she had apparently spent the night. As she sat up, she realized that someone had draped a blanket over her.

“What happened?” she gasped. “Is he—?”

“He’s alive.”

She slumped down, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of her.
Okay,
she told herself.
Okay. You have to hold it together.
“How is he?”

Jason’s expression was pinched, like something sharp was digging into him. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Worse.”

“I thought Amelia was giving him antibiotics.”

“She has been,” Jason said. “But she doesn’t know what kind of bacteria is causing the infection, so she’s doing what she can with what she happened to have on her boat. Nothing has helped—not the antibiotics, not the fluids, not whatever spells she’s been using. The infection’s still spreading. He could go into septic shock at any time.”

Lee’s mouth went dry. “What does that mean?”

“Amelia said it’s like a full-body response to the infection. His blood pressure will drop, his organs will fail, and—” Jason’s voice broke. “And then—” But he couldn’t finish.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Lee asked. She couldn’t get her breath. “There has to be
something
.”

Jason squirmed. “Amelia explained something to me. She said that she can’t be sure it’ll work, but at this point, it’s the only thing she can think of that might save him.”

“What is it?” Lee demanded.

Very quietly, like he was afraid to speak the words, Jason repeated what Amelia had told him. The longer he spoke, the colder Lee felt.

“I need to know what you think,” Jason said helplessly, when he was finished.

“I don’t know.” Lee couldn’t look at him. He looked too much like Nasser. “It’s not my decision to make.”

“It’s not mine, either.”

“But you’re his
brother
. You’re family.”

“So are you! Between all of us, we should be able to figure out what he would want.”

Lee’s hands started to shake. She squeezed them together so tightly that her fingers turned white. Her whole chest hurt, and she couldn’t tell if the pain was from love or despair.

When she closed her eyes, she could see him: Nasser, who had given his true name to save her, who spoke to her with flowers, who had the gentlest hands she’d ever known, who made her feel like she could do anything. Nasser.

“I’m selfish, Jason,” she whispered. “You can’t listen to me. I don’t care what anyone else wants. I just care about him. I’m going to pick whatever keeps him alive, no matter what.” She risked a glance at him. Her vision blurred with tears. “Have you talked to Alice and Filo?”

He nodded. “Right before I came to see you.”

“What did they say?”

“They love him, too,” Jason said miserably, and she didn’t need any further explanation to know what their response had been. He hunched forward, looking as if he were collapsing in on himself. “Oh, God…”

Lee reached over and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back, but he didn’t look up.

After a minute, Jason drew back, scrubbed one hand over his face and said, “I’m going to talk to Amelia. We don’t have time to wait around.”

He got up and turned toward the stairs. Lee sat up ramrod straight. “What are you going to do, then?”

When Jason looked at her, she could see that it wasn’t a choice for him, not really, just as it would never have been a choice for her. There was one option. There was only ever one.

Jason lifted one shoulder in a small, weary shrug. “I choose him.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

When Nasser peeled his eyes open, he was sure that he was dreaming. He was lying in a bed, looking up at an unfamiliar white ceiling. His body felt distant and hazy, like he was separate from it. For the first time in what felt like ages, he wasn’t in pain.

This couldn’t be real. It was too bright and too warm. It didn’t hurt enough.

Shifting a little, he noticed the IV in his arm. His gaze traveled up the line to the IV stand, and to the plastic bag dripping clear fluid into his veins—and then to Jason, who was slumped in a chair beside the bed. Jason was asleep, his head fallen forward onto his chest.

With concerted effort, Nasser reached out and touched his brother’s arm. “Jason.”

Jason jerked awake. He looked around for a second, confused, before his gaze landed on Nasser. Then he smiled as Nasser had never seen him smile, his eyes shiny. “Hey.”

“What happened?” Nasser’s voice was rusty, thick.

“You don’t remember?”

“Nasser?” The sound of Lee’s voice made Nasser turn his head.

She leaned over him from the other side of the bed. Her eyes were shadowed, like she hadn’t been sleeping, and her hair was chopped short. He was baffled as he watched her circle around to the other side of the bed and perch on the edge of the mattress beside him. She grabbed one of his hands in both of hers, squeezing like she thought he would disappear.

“See? I told you.” She was smiling, but she was crying, too. “I said I’d be here when you woke up.”

“What happened?” Nasser asked again. “Are we—are we on Siren?”

Lee nodded. “We’re back. We’ve been here for four days. You’ve been asleep.”

The door opened and a tall woman breezed into the room, crossing to stand next to Jason’s chair. Her dark hair was pulled back and she surveyed the three of them with pale brown eyes. Nasser had never seen her before.

“I thought I heard another voice,” she said. “It’s good to see you awake. My name is Amelia Carter. I’m a doctor with the Guild.”

He stared up at her for a moment, suddenly sure that he was dreaming again. He tensed. “With the
Guild?
”

“Yes. It’s all right. I’m not here to drag you or anyone else in for questioning. I’m just here to help.”

“Help with what?”

Looking to Jason and Lee, Amelia asked, “Can you give us a few minutes alone? I think it’s better that I talk to him.”

They hesitated. Lee was still squeezing his hand. Jason’s expression was the one he’d worn when he was eight years old and had broken their mother’s favorite vase, when he’d looked down at the shattered pieces and realized that they could not be repaired.

“Jason,” Nasser said, trying for his big-brother tone and failing, because his voice was still a weak rasp. He tried to communicate with his eyes:
If something’s wrong, you tell me right now.