Chapter 15: Fever

Willa's POV

By Thursday night the skin around my wrist had gone hot and tight.

I told myself it was the dialysis tape.

At midnight I woke with my teeth chattering and the quilt soaked through.

I tried to stand, and the floor went sideways.

"Willa."

Finnegan was in the doorway, in a grey T-shirt, with the lamp behind him.

He crossed the room in three steps and put the back of his hand against my forehead.

"You're burning," he said.

"I'm fine."

"You're not. Give me your arm."

He unwound the gauze, and we both looked at the red streak climbing from the scar toward my elbow.

He swore under his breath.

He called the nurse practitioner on speaker, and she told him which pills, how much water, and what the numbers on the thermometer meant.

"If it passes a hundred and four, you bring her in," she said. "Otherwise you keep her cool and you keep her talking."

"Understood."

He hung up and went for a basin.

I lay back and watched the ceiling beams slide in and out of focus.

For a while I was in the warehouse again, counting the ninth cell's bricks.

Then a cold cloth settled on my neck, and the cabin came back.

He sat on the edge of the bed with the cloth in his hand.

"Talk to me," he said. "Tell me something."

"I don't want to talk about the tapes."

"Then tell me something else. Anything."

I turned my head on the pillow.

"I liked baseball," I said. "Before. I had season tickets with my father, and I kept the scorecards in a shoebox."

"Which team?"

"Cleveland. We sat behind first base."

"Who was your favourite?"

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