Page 193

Leo lowered his arms—he hadn’t even realized he’d raised them.

Nate came closer, slowly, carefully. He still had dust in his hair, and now a gray streak across his cheek as well. He pulled off one of his gloves and held a hand out between them.

Leo reached for it. Had the pinch of tea worn off yet? It probably had, but Nate had enough presence left for Leo to feel the solid warmth of him against his own ghostly skin.

Nate was real and here with him.

Unlike the people in his memory.

Where had they gone?

How long had Leo spent guarding a completely empty space?

“They were here,” Leo murmured. “And now they’re not.”

“I believe you.”

Leo looked past him at the opening.

He could see the basement through it. The furnace. The workbench. The place where he’d stood for so long.

“I don’t remember them leaving.” He turned to Nate. “Do you think they got out?”

“I hope so,” Nate said.

Leo looked at him, waiting for more.

There wasn’t any more.

“You don’t know.”

“No.”

Leo turned back to the cot. The blanket lay exactly as it had when he’d come through the wall, but Leo could still imagine someone wrapped in it.

“He was scared,” Leo said. “He thought someone might come and take him back.”

“Back where?”

“I don’t know. The woman said they wouldn’t know he was here. That he’d come to the right place.”

Nate waited.

“He didn’t think so.” Leo tried to recall the words exactly. It was difficult when the thing he’d focused on most was the crying. “He said he hadn’t wanted to come here. He’d wanted to drive to a hospital.”

Nate glanced at the bed.

“Was he hurt?”

“I didn’t see anything.” There were tears, but no blood, and Leo didn’t think the tears had come from physical pain. “He started to explain. He said, ‘but he,’ and then he couldn’t finish.”

“That’s all?”

Leo nodded.

“The woman held him.”

He recalled that clearly. The boy bent over the bag, her arms around his shoulders. Leo had wanted to take her place so badly.