Chapter 15: Alive

Damien went white.

Not pale.

White, all at once, like a sheet pulled up over a face.

His hand dropped from my arm.

It hung at his side, and the fingers opened and closed on nothing.

"No," he said.

It wasn't loud.

It was the voice of a man testing a floor he already knew was gone.

"Look at him," the woman said. "Look at those eyes."

"Stop."

"He's been asking about you."

Someone in the crowd gasped.

Four hundred phones were up now, a field of small lit windows.

Celia stood very still with her hands folded, watching him the way you watch a monitor.

I had seen men take bad news in a hallway.

The ones who fell were the ones who stayed on their feet too long.

I took his hand.

I took it in front of everyone.

Not light, not for a camera.

I wove my fingers through his and held hard.

"We're leaving," I said.

"Mrs. Kastar," Celia began.

"We're leaving."

I didn't look at her.

I turned and walked, and he came with me.

The crowd parted.

Nobody spoke.

The quartet had stopped altogether.

I heard my heels on the marble and his steps beside me, too even, like a man counting.

A hand reached for my sleeve.

Marcus.

He read my face and said only, "Coat room. Left. I'll hold the door."

The coat room was a long narrow place smelling of wool and cedar.

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