He dropped his head into his hands, resisting the urge to claw at his scalp.
“Are you going to be sick?”
“No,” Romeo mumbled through his fingers, “I’m not going to be sick.Just drive.”
****
The lake offered Romeono clue.
If Josh was telling him the truth, then why had Chad been at the lake?
It was too dark to investigate, and the gate for the car park had been locked.The fishing lodge, the signposts, even the website looked expensive, not the kind of place a gang would drag Chad to and drown him.
Romeo tried to push the thought from his head, but it persisted.Chad in trouble.Chad surrounded.Chad unable to call him.He had been plagued by those thoughts before, dreams where the magpie was Chad and Chad was the magpie.
Or ...Chad pulled over by the police.Chad interrogated.Chad in a holding cell somewhere while they tried to draw Romeo out.
Romeo’s headache beat like a drum.
Mercutio was hiding beneath the table when Romeo stepped into the kitchen.
A urine puddle shone on the floor.
“Shit,” Romeo exhaled.“I’m sorry.”
Romeo had left him far too long, and after cleaning up the mess he managed to coax a cowering Mercutio out from the table.
“I’m not mad,” he told him, patting his head.“It was my fault.”
He opened the back door wide for Mercutio to go outside.
He never went far.
Then Romeo pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.He texted Josh for an update of Chad’s condition.
He placed his phone on the table and waited like he’d been waiting three hours before.
Romeo snatched it off the table when it buzzed.
“Where the hell are you?”Josh snapped.
“I’ve been ...delayed.”
“Delayed?”
“My flight,” Romeo scrunched up his face, hoping it sounded plausible.“It was cancelled.”
He braced himself for Josh to ask where he was flying from, but instead Josh just exhaled a long drawn out, “shit.”
“How is he?”
“The neurosurgeon’s been in.He said from the damage he suspects Chad was without oxygen for five to eight minutes before bystanders managed to get him out and begin CPR.”
Romeo didn’t know Josh at all, didn’t know whether he sounded genuine.He pressed his lips together, waiting for Josh to break the silence.
“He’s in a coma.He has ...there’s damage, particularly in his hippocampus. But he’s breathing on his own, and the doctor thinks the water being cold would’ve helped.”
It was specific.Maybe too specific.Romeo’s head pounded.
