Chapter 8: Three Seconds

"Don't stare," Ivo said quietly. "They'll feel it."

"Who? The people or the things?"

"Both."

I made myself look at the dining hall instead.

I grabbed my sprayer out of the truck bed and walked toward it.

On stage, Zane was barefoot in white, with a headset mic.

"Now," he said, "the part I love most. Gratitude pages."

Staffers in white polo shirts walked the rows handing out cream-colored paper and pens.

"Write what you're thankful for,"

Zane said.

"Write it to me, if you want. I can take it. And sign it. Your name makes it real."

Two hundred people bent over their laps and wrote.

A woman near the path was crying while she did it.

The pest on her neck pulsed, slow and happy.

The staffers collected the pages in a wicker basket.

One of them carried it across the lawn to a cedar cabin with a sign that said Office.

"I'm checking the dining hall," I told Ivo. "Go check the office for wasps."

"There are no wasps in the office."

"Then you'll be quick."

He looked at me for a long second.

"You're going in there."

"Can you just not ask me things you know?"

He went to stand by the dining hall door, where he could see both buildings.

That was his way of saying fine.

I waited until the staffer came out empty-handed.

Then I walked in with my sprayer.

The office was cool and smelled like cedar and printer toner.

The wicker basket sat on a desk.

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