Chapter 11: Seventy-Four

"What did you say?" I whispered.

Thatcher kept me against the refrigerator, his forehead nearly on mine.

"It speaks to you," he said. "The voice. The numbers."

"How do you know about the numbers?"

"Because it says them to me too."

My legs came down off his waist.

He let them, and he held me up until my feet found the floor.

"Three years," he said.

"It tells me when you're hurt. It told me at the gala. Host penalty, one shock, and I watched you go down."

"That's why you looked at my head."

"Yes."

"You said it passes in four seconds."

"It does. I've heard it happen to the other two."

"What other two?"

He didn't answer.

His hands were still on my waist, and they had started to shake.

"Tell me," I said.

"Not here. Not with you in pajamas and me soaked and your roommate asleep next door."

His voice broke on a laugh.

"I'll tell you everything. I swear. Give me one night to put it in order."

"One night."

"Yes."

"And what do we do until then?"

"I go home."

"That's eight," I said.

He closed his eyes.

"It's seventy-four percent, Thatcher. I'd say we're past the careful part."

"If it reaches a hundred, June."

"It's seventy-four," I said. "Take me to bed."

He opened his eyes.

I don't know what he saw in my face.

He picked me up, and I laughed into his neck.

He carried me into my bedroom and shut the door with his foot.

We were very quiet. The wall between my room and Lacey's is thin.

He put me down on the bed and stood over me, still in his wet coat.

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