Noam said something incomprehensible against Dara’s chest, his face tilted in against Dara’s shoulder. Dara nudged him up enough that Noam’s mouth wasn’t blocked.
“What did you say?” he whispered.
“He’s coming.”
It was like a blade fell, cutting through Dara’s spine and severing it in two. He stiffened, fingers clenching around a handful of Noam’s shirt.
“Get him in the car.”
Ames helped Dara drag Noam to the back door, Leo on the other side of the car pulling Noam in by the shoulders to sprawl across the back seat. This time, Noam didn’t scream. He barely even moved at all.
“Do you live around here?” Dara asked Leo, meeting his gaze across the seat, Leo’s fingers pressed against Noam’s neck like he was checking his pulse.
“Yeah. But I have a roommate.”
At least he didn’t suggest they go to the hospital.
Ames took the front seat, pulling the door shut in her wake. Then: “Shit!It’s not driverless.”
“Figure it out,” Dara snapped back, climbing into the back seat and dragging Noam’s limp legs up onto his lap, shifting over enough to see his face. Noam was looking paler by the minute, his eyes shut and still.
“Don’t you remember me crashing Lehrer’s car that time? I can’t fucking drive!”
“Ames!”
“Fine, fine—hope I don’t kill us all—”
She tossed something back toward him, and Dara caught it on reflex. It was surprisingly slippery; he glanced down—Noam’s phone, the screen covered in blood.
The car lurched out of park, Ames’s knuckles blanching around the wheel as she pressed the gas. Across the back seat Leo had his head tilted down to keep his ear near Noam’s mouth.
“Are you some kind of doctor or something?” Dara snapped, irritation rearing up in him—as if, in the absence of a better target for all that fear and anger, his temper had latched onto Leo instead.
“I got trained in basic life support while I was in the army,” Leo said. “Not much good without equipment, but ...”
Dara wished he had Noam’s head in his own lap instead. That he could brush his fingers over Noam’s brow and tuck his hair back behind his perfect ear.
Instead he was useless. Always,alwaysuseless now.
Dara blinked his eyes hard against the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks and patted Noam’s leg like that would make the slightest difference.
Noam wouldn’t die. He couldn’t.
Dara wouldn’t let him.
“Where are we going, exactly?” Ames said from the front seat. They turned onto Magnum Street, headed back downtown. Dara blinked against the glittering city lights as they rose to meet them, his pulse erratic. He kept expecting to see a black government car peel around the upcoming corner to block them in.
“Not your place,” Dara said. “Go to ... Holloway. Go to Holloway’s.”
Holloway was a government official—Noam had been right about that—but it was the best choice they had. They couldn’t check into a hotel, not with Noam in this condition.
Ames nodded in the rearview mirror, and Dara turned his attention back to Noam, whose chest rose and fell more slowly now, the slightest of motions. Leo dabbed at the blood on Noam’s face with the bar towel, not that it did much good.
“Stay with me,” Dara murmured, knowing Noam couldn’t hear him. He wished he dared text Bethany, but he couldn’t guarantee Lehrer didn’t already have someone watching her phone. Watchingher.
All Dara could do now was tangle his fingers around Noam’s clammy palm and hold on tight.
Holloway lived in Forest Hills, in a house not far from the one Ames had grown up in.
