Chapter 21: Not Here

Ethan's POV

The deputies took Travis out through the front doors, and the whole lobby watched him go.

I sat on a velvet bench with my back against the wall and my hands flat on my knees.

I kept looking at them.

They were solid, with every knuckle and every scar where it belonged.

Audrey sat so close beside me that her knee pressed mine, and her mother had hold of my other arm and would not let it go.

"Sir, I need you to say your name for the report," said the sheriff, with a notepad.

"Ethan Kramer."

"Spell it."

I spelled it.

I listened to my own voice saying it, and it was the best sound I had heard in three years.

Susie arrived at a dead run, still holding a headset, and threw herself at all three of us at once.

"I did it," she said into my collar. "I did the thing with the speakers. Did you hear the speakers?"

"Everybody heard the speakers," Audrey said.

"I'm going to throw up."

"Do it in the plant."

"I love you, you ridiculous people."

The sheriff cleared his throat.

"Ma'am, I need a statement from you too."

"I have forty minutes of statement," Susie said, and she wiped her face and stood up.

In my head, something clicked.

*Ledger void. Balance: $0. Anchor released.*

I held very still.

*Mission condition: love given unpaid. Met.*

*Mission condition: love unrecorded. Met.*

*Mission condition: love said freely. Waiting.*

Audrey felt me go quiet.

"Did it speak?" she said.

I looked at her.

I could have told her the whole thing.

I could have said that it was only the three words now.

I could have said that the room was full of people who had just stood up and shouted my name.

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