I touch my mind to my mind, no impact, like sky touching sky.Are you real?I ask.Is this real?
Silence for too long.
Wake up, Rosa, she says. I can feel that something is wrong.You shouldn’t be here. You need to go back—
Tell me what’s happening, I say.Tell me where I am, tell me where we are—
You’re in my dreams,she says again.Not yours. Mine. Never come back here.Wake up and never come back here—
Panic, spooling.But—Why—
Because, Rosa,she says.I only dream of the dead.
Horror, white-hot.
Devouring.
Wake up, she says desperately.Wake up—
Clara—No—
WAKE UP,she screams.WAKE UP—
20
James
“All right,” Kenji says, “let’s take a vote.”
“A vote?” Warner frowns. “When have I ever given you the impression that this was a democracy?”
“About ten years ago?” Kenji says, without missing a beat. “Remember? We did a whole revolution? You were there. You were all,Ew, fascists—”
“I never agreed to allow an uninformed majority to overrule my judgment on matters within my purview.”
“Technically”—Kenji cringes—“you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.
“No,” Warner says firmly. “I didn’t.”
“Yes, you—”
“This is a dumb idea,” I say for the third time, banging my head lightly against the window casing. This meeting has only intensified my nerves. I feel like I’m going to jump out of my own skin. “You can’t just release her into her father’s custody.”
“I didn’t ask you for your opinion,” Warner says to me. “You’re lucky even to be here.”
“You mean you’re lucky I saved you from making a huge mistake?” I push away from the window to look at him. “You’re welcome.”
“James—”
“Look, I’ve acknowledged a thousand times now that I was stupid to bring her here. I messed up—I really messed up—and I’m sorry. But you messed up by shutting me out, too. I nearly killed myself trying to get you to listen to me, and now we’ve got under seven weeks before something terrible happens and we still don’t know what it is—and you still won’t listen to me.”
“I will not discharge her from observation,” Warner says coldly. “Not until we finalize a plan for her transfer and containment.”
“Observation?” I’m nearly blind with fury. “You put her in a fucking coma!”
