I don’t feel too hot either.
My side hurts, but I do my best to ignore the throb. It’s my head that claims all my attention. Every jarring footstep sends a corresponding jolt through my temples. I prod the base of my skull as we run and wince at the swelling goose egg. Glancing over at Malcolm, I don’t need to search for the spot where he was hit. It looks like he has a golf ball stitched onto the side of his head.
His toe catches on a square of sidewalk that a nearby oak lifted with its roots, and I have to catch him before he goes down.
“Stop. Malcolm, we have to stop.” I pull him under the shelter of the tree’s dense branches, and we huddle together, shivering for more reasons than the temperature. My body tells me we’ve run a half marathon. My head tells me we’ve gone maybe a mile or two.
Not far enough. Not nearly far enough.
We’re still in suburbia. Friendly scarecrows are staked in the freshly mown lawns of red brick middle-class homes. Hastily abandoned bikes line both sides of the street. Artfully carved pumpkins decorate every porch. The grass is still green even as the oak trees that guard the neighborhood have all turned golden, crimson, and rust.
But there’s nowhere to go. Not even a conveniently unlocked garage.
I’ve been looking.
“Okay, I did my part,” I say—pant, really. “Where’s my mom?”
Malcolm laughs at my bad joke. “Get me a computer.”
“Sure,” I say. “Anything else?” He doesn’t laugh this time. “How much farther can you walk?”
“Not far.” The weariness in his voice tells me he’s overestimating even that. “It’s like fire, every step, but sharp.” His hand drifts to the hem of his shirt but then moves away, as though he doesn’t want to see the skin underneath. Or he already knows how bad it is.
“Malcolm,” I say softly, my gaze forcibly lifting from his side to his face. “Maybe you should—”
But he’s shaking his head, cutting off my offer before I can even make it. “I promised we’d find your mom. I owe you that much. I’ll be all right till then.”
My stomach clenches. If he hadn’t added those last two words, I’d have let myself believe him. But every second I force him to run or jump off roofs, or even stand, puts him at more risk. For all I know, his cracked ribs have fully broken—that is, if they weren’t broken before. Maybe the hairline fractures have split wide and cut his insides and he’s bleeding internally. I blanch at the thought.
Turning my head, I look for the closest house with a car in its driveway and lights on inside and head straight toward it. He’s not fine. But he will be.
“What are you…Where are you going?”
“To get you help. You need to go to the hospital, Malcolm. We both know that.”
“Wait.” He takes a lurching step after me. “Will you wait!” The sudden strength in his voice stops me, and he straightens more than I thought he could. “You still need me.”
“Not if you’re hurt. Not if helping me hurts you more.” The rain is so torrential now that my mouth fills with water every time I open it to speak. “And you don’t owe me anything anymore. I’m not holding a weapon or forcing you. You don’t even know me.” I try to laugh. “I can’t help you with the money, but I won’t say anything about you to anyone, okay? You can go. No hard feelings. I can figure the rest out on my own. I don’t know how, but I will.”
Malcolm’s eyes narrow, his brows drawing closer together. “Are you done?”
I frown. “If you’re ready to let me get you to a hospital I am.”
He licks his lips. His glare intensifies.
“Is that your guy way of saying yes without having to sayso?”
“You are a piece of work. You know that?”
For a moment, his words hurt more than all the aches and throbs in my body combined. I don’t understand why he’s so angry. I’m giving him exactly what he wanted back at the motel. This is his out. “Why are you acting like I’m the bad guy all of a sudden?” I say. “I’m trying to do the right thing!”
“No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re trying to do the thing you think makes you look strong. It doesn’t. I’m not about to keel over here, okay? My ribs hurt like a mother, and I’m tired, I’m cold, I’m hungry. I’m all the things you are, so stop trying to ditch me when we both know you don’t have any idea where to go next.”
“Oh, and you do?”
“Yeah, actually. I do.”
Myeyes narrow. I don’t know him well enough to tell if he’s bluffing. But why would he?
