Chapter 6: Nothing Where It Should Hurt

I couldn't sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes I was back on the ridge trail, running with a flashlight and a lie.

At two in the morning I gave up and opened the door.

The corridor was dark, with one lamp burning at the far end.

Torin sat under it on a wooden chair with his back to the wall.

He wasn't reading or looking at a phone.

He was just sitting, and when my door opened he was on his feet before it finished swinging.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," I said. "I can't sleep."

"Do you want tea?"

"I want to stop thinking."

He nodded.

"There's a window seat at the end of the east wing that looks over the lake. I sit there sometimes. Nobody else goes."

"Is that an invitation, Captain?"

"It's a window."

I followed him.

The window seat was a deep stone ledge with a cushion on it, and the lake lay black and flat below with the moon on it.

It was the same moon.

I sat at one end and he sat at the other, with the whole cushion between us.

For a while neither of us said anything.

"How long did you have the number?" I asked. "The one I called."

"Twenty-four years. The King kept it live every day. It rang only in my pocket."

"You carried that phone for twenty-four years?"

"For eleven. Before that it was my father's. He died looking for you."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." His voice was very even. "I'm only telling you why when it rang, I dropped a plate."

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