Chapter 8: Swap

I hadn't looked at him once since the park.

I'd read three hundred strangers on Eastern Avenue, and I hadn't looked at the man who was killing crabs for me.

"Why didn't you say something?" I said.

"You were busy," Calvin said. "It didn't hurt that bad."

"It's red."

"It hurts that bad now."

I got my hands on his back where the dark spot was, under his jacket.

The skin around the bite was hot and black-edged, and the black was crawling outward under my fingers.

A crab bite that went bad went bad from the inside.

Nothing we had in the building touched it.

"Gloria! I need the attending in the bay."

"He's inside a woman's belly in Bay Three, hon. He says an hour."

Calvin's red flickered.

I pressed down and pushed with everything I had.

The heat went up my arms, and the Hold took.

His color stopped sliding.

Then the bite hit me, and I put my forehead on his shoulder.

It was in my own back, low on the left.

"Kilbane," he said. "Let go. You're shaking."

"If I let go, you go black."

"You don't know that."

"I know exactly that. It's written on you."

He was quiet for a second.

"Okay," he said. "Then don't let go."

People had started gathering in the bay doorway.

Connor came through them on his crutches with the little girl's mother behind him.

He saw me on my knees on the concrete with my hands on Calvin's back.

"Mom?"

"I'm fine. I'm working."

"You're crying."

"It's his back that hurts, Mouse. I'm just feeling it."

Connor put his crutches down and sat on the floor where Calvin could see him.

He just stayed.

The Hold worked.

It didn't fix anything.

As long as my hands were on Calvin, he stayed red and got no worse, and the bite stayed in my back.

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