Chapter 5: Fever

By the end of the third week Evan had slept eleven hours in total, and the lift floor was tilting under him.

He had worked two shifts every day.

The first was at the desk by the printer, where he now had a monitor that showed him nothing but the company calendar.

The second was every night at the kitchen island, where he sat with the laptop and watched the intruder walk around in the quiet room he'd built.

He had a cough from Tuesday.

He had a fever from Wednesday, and he did not mention it, because mentioning things was how people started asking questions.

On Thursday evening he rode down to the lobby with a stack of Maya's folders in his arms.

The lift doors closed.

The numbers fell.

At floor twelve the light went soft and the folders slid out of his hands.

He heard them hit the carpet. He did not hear himself fall.

"Evan."

A hand was on his shoulder, and then a second hand was under his arm.

"Evan. Look at me."

Ethan had come in at the nineteenth floor.

Evan had not seen him come in.

"I'm fine," Evan said, into a dark suit. "I tripped."

"You're burning." Ethan's palm was against his forehead. "How long have you been like this?"

"Since Wednesday. Tuesday. It's not a big deal."

"Idiot," Ethan said, very low.

He swept the folders into one arm and pulled Evan against his side with the other.

When the lift opened, Ethan did not take him across the lobby.

He keyed a gold card into a panel Evan had never noticed, and a private door slid open on the back of the car.

They went down to the garage in silence.

Evan's head fell against his shoulder somewhere on the way.

He smelled cedar and the clean edge of starch.

He thought, distantly, that this was the closest they had ever been on purpose.

Then the car, and the dark glass of the road, and nothing.

He woke in a bed that was not his own.

The sheets were grey and very soft.

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