Asher’s eyes found him. For a second, a pocket of him surfaced through the fever, his eyes focused on Levi with that same slack smile. “Your birthday.”
The information lodged somewhere Levi did not have time to feel yet, slotted into the pile of things he could be wrecked about later. He typed it in. The phone unlocked. He opened contactsand scrolled and found it, just labeled DOCTOR H, with a note under the name:concierge, house calls, any hour.
He counted the rings and made himself breathe between them. Finally, a voice answered, “Yes?”
“Hi, this is — it doesn’t matter. I’m at Asher Kane’s house. He has a fever and there are red lines on his leg…he’s not making sense—”
“Slow down. Tell me about the lines.”
“They’re — they come up from the wound on his thigh. Red. Going up toward his hip. I can see them clearly. The skin around the wound is tight, and red —”
“How long has he been febrile?”
“I don’t know. I woke up and his side of the bed …he’s burning, he’s so hot, I don’t know how long, I’m sorry —”
“Tell him he’s lucky, I’m one county over handling another incident. I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
The line went dead.
Levi sat on the bed with the phone in his hand and looked at Asher.
Asher was still talking to the ceiling, quieter now, his voice thinning out.
“— nicer this time,“ he murmured. “Less death. More of the quiet parts. We can have a garden. In the game. Like with the raccoon —”
I need to lower his fever.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Stay awake.”
Asher’s hand twitched toward him.
Levi caught it and held it, just for a few seconds, then scrambled off the bed. He didn’t even bother trying to find his cane, he just rushed to the kitchen and yanked open the freezer. The cold dropped over him and he had not put a shirt on, had not thought to, and the cold was good. It made everything come into focus. He grabbed a mixing bowl, held it under theice dispenser and grabbed whatever he could from inside the freezer. Frozen peas. Frozen corn. A bag of frozen edamame Asher had bought because Levi liked them. A pint of vanilla ice cream he’d opened three days ago and immediately put back because Asher got too excited at the idea of feeding him. He loaded all of it against his chest and carried it back up to the bedroom.
He packed the bags around Asher’s torso beneath the sheets around him; under his arms, against his ribs, the peas against the side of his neck where the artery would be. He scooped loose ice from the bowl and pressed it to Asher’s lips as he crawled onto the bed. “Small sips, just as it melts. Can you hear me?”
Asher’s hand came up to his wrist and closed around it, half limp. “Levi?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re cold.”
“I know.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I know,” Levi whispered, abandoning the ice cube as the water dripped around Asher’s mouth.
“Don’t go,” Asher said. Almost a whisper. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Levi said. He pressed his forehead into Asher’s shoulder. “Thirty-five minutes. Stay awake. Tell me about the garden you are going to put in the nightmare machine.”
You can’t leave me again, Asher. I won’t let you.
Asher tried to laugh, but it came out like a weak wheeze.
The words came slower. The garden had kale. The garden had a low stone wall. There were going to be bees but only the gentle kind that didn’t sting. Levi held Asher’s hand against the soaked t-shirt and counted Asher’s breaths, the ice cream melting and the peas thawing and Levi did not let go.
45
