Chapter 24: Counting Up

On the morning of Saturday, April nineteenth, Maren woke before the alarm in a soft grey light.

It was eight days since Quillan Night.

She lay in her own bed, in her own second-floor room, and took stock.

Her head was whole. Her hair was smooth under her fingers.

Her wrists lay bare on the quilt, with nothing strapped to them.

The only thing her hand touched was Jonah's shoulder, warm and rough under her palm.

No picture came, and no count. He had stopped blocking her weeks ago, and what she felt was only him.

She let that be the whole morning for a while.

Down in the street, a bus ground its gears. Downstairs, Ruth was already banging pots.

Owen's hospital bill had been paid the week before out of the Institute's frozen accounts.

He had framed the zero and hung it over his bed.

"You're awake," Jonah said into the pillow.

"How long have you been faking?"

"Since the bus."

She turned on her side and looked at him.

A letter lay folded in the drawer of the bedside table.

He had read it many times and had not answered it, because the girl had said he didn't have to.

He had gone to see her on Wednesday anyway.

He had sat in Ruth's sister's kitchen, and she had given him a mug of tea.

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