Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen Years Ago - Evelyn
MY BODY FEELS like someone ran over it with a tractor, dumped me in a pool of ice and then covered me with fire ants. In that order. Sounds terrible, because it is. I might even hate this flu as much as I hate Cyrus.
Another wave of hot and cold hits me, and the shivers start up again so violently that my teeth clack together. Clinging to my blanket for dear life, I will time to go faster, while I try to remember what it felt like to be healthy. Going forward, I’ll be grateful for any day I’m not battling a fever.
Glancing at my clock, I learn that it’s only two o’clock in the morning.
So many more hours to get through.
My door creaks open then, but I mumble for the hallucinations to leave me alone. My body is torturing me enough, I don’t need my mind playing tricks. The hallucination doesn’t listen, puts the back of their hand on my forehead and swears. It takes strength, but I force my eyelids back open, head throbbing in response.
Not a hallucination, but Ryder coming to check on me.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I grate, my throat is taking no mercy on me either.
“I was, but then I woke up. Figured I would come check on you since you weren’t feeling well at dinner.”
Another shiver racks through me. “No need to worry, Mother Hen, I’ve got it all under control.”
Ryder sighs, sitting on the edge of my bed. It takes all of a few seconds for his body heat to reach me through the blankets and quiet my clacking. “Did Cyrus give you any medicine to help?”
“What do you think?”
Ryder tenses next to me. “He thought you were faking it?”
I nod, not wanting to feel the scratchiness of my throat again.
“I’ll be right back.” Ryder stands and stalks toward my door. Ever seen a nine-year-old stalk across the room? Me neither, but Ryder has somehow figured it out earlier than most.
My teeth start chattering all over again and I don’t want him to go.
Even though my bones feel broken, I force myself onto my feet and follow him to his room. The walls and floors are moving…a lot. They’re all wavy and spinny, making me dizzy. I rest my hand on his door frame to steady myself and look up just in time to watch him lift a loose plank of wood from his floor, revealing a secret compartment.
Maybe I’d do this flu all over again if learning this secret is my prize. I can’t see everything he’s got stuffed inside, but the green paper he slides into his pocket is obvious.
Ryder jumps as he turns to find me, “Evie! I said–”
But then I’m tumbling over and he’s catching me with an umph before I hit the awful brown floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything, I promise. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Eves. I’m not angry with you for seeing.” Ryder picks me up and carries me to his bed. “But you’re too sick to move. You have to wait here for me, okay? I’ll go get your pillows, but then I have to go out to get you some medicine.”
I want to tell him that it’s not safe for him to go outside at this time of night, or even worse, if Cyrus finds out, being in this house would be even more dangerous than whatever waits for him out there. But my throat aches and everything goes dark.
A while later, I’m shaking hard enough that I wake myself up again, still in Ryder’s bed and no sign of him. He doesn’t have a clock, so I have no idea how long he’s been gone, but I pray to the gods they don’t take him away from me. After the round of shivers begins to ease, I lose the battle against unconsciousness, too weak to fight it despite my worries.
And then there’s a gentle hand on my shoulder, and with it my body, mind, and soul feels like it eases a little. A sense of safety falls around me, the boy next to me its center. Ryder begins pulling bottles out of his pockets and little boxes of medicine. There’s no way he had enough money for everything here.
“How did you get all of this?”
“Walgreens donated it to a good cause.”
It’s me, I’m the good cause. “You stole it?”
“Not all of it. I left them as much money as I had.”
Stealing is never the right thing to do, but my throat hurts too much to tell him. Besides, Ryder only took it because it was for me. Sometimes I think he might do anything for me, no matter what it costs him. Maybe it’s bad of him, and even worse of me to be glad of it, but I am.
Ryder makes me swallow some tablets, followed by some syrup that tastes like grapes. It’s not too bad, because after a while my body stops its shaking. He coaxes me up and helps me back to my room. “I wouldn’t mind if you stayed, but hopefully you sleep a lot now, and Cyrus might wake up before you do. He can’t find us sleeping in the same bed.”
We wobble into my room, Ryder’s other arm full of my pillows and whatever else he could fit under his arm. He tucks me into bed, hides the medicine under my pillow and tells me not to take it out in front of Cyrus. As if I’d be so careless around that awful man.
“Sleep now, Evie.” Ryder lies down next me, on top of the blankets so they remain cocooned around me.
“Ryder?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you sing to me?”
Ryder reaches over, brushing my hair off my forehead. “Of course.”
Grew up thinking there would only be darkness
It was endless, that midnight sky
Then like the sun that breaks the day, you were a sparkling streak of light
Now, I may never keep the world at bay
But here’s the promise I can make
When the sea is dark
When the waves are rough
When the darkness tries to swallow you whole
There I’ll be
I’ll be, I’ll be, I’ll be
I’ll beee-eee-eee
Stronger than any medicine, Ryder’s melody guides me to sleep.