Chapter 54
I’ve loved many things in my life, but I’ve never loved anything the way I love my team. Leaving them will be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I help Benji with research, trying to find the anchor tethering Morrow to this world.
We spend hours poring over case files and old interview transcripts, which is extremely boring, but it gives me something to do.
Donny’s name comes up often in our reading.
It doesn’t hurt as much as I expected. Benji says it’s like he’s checking in on us.
I’m starting to get used to doing everything one-handed.
Opening jars requires wedging them between my knees.
Typing is a one-fingered poking situation, and don’t get me started on trying to put my hair in a ponytail, but I’m managing.
My stump is pretty cool. Griffin helps me unwrap and redress it every day, and the way the skin is healing over where my fingers used to be is metal as hell.
I don’t regret doing it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Nico safe.
What I can’t get used to is the silence from Nico.
His infection hasn’t been responding to antibiotics as well as mine did, so his hospital stay keeps dragging on longer and longer.
I’m so scared someone is going to recognize him and throw him in jail, but the police already came to talk to him and nothing bad happened.
He pretended to have amnesia, and because his injuries didn’t so clearly come from circumstances that suggested foul play like mine did (hard to explain a clean cut through half my hand), they didn’t press him hard.
It helped that, at the time they came in to talk to him, his face was still swollen to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.
DJ says the swelling has gone down now, but apparently, Nico’s beard has grown, and between all that and the surgical changes to his face, he looks nothing like he did in high school.
I just want him to come home.
I want to call him so badly my fingers hover over DJ’s contact every couple of hours, ready to ask her to put him on the phone, but I can’t make myself do it.
There are too many things I want to say to him, and I don’t want to say any of them over the phone.
I’m too scared of what the answers are going to be.
Griffin and Benji spend three full days at the abandoned hospital, scrubbing it clean and removing all evidence that anything untoward ever happened there.
They go through Henley’s car and house meticulously, getting rid of all traces that could link Henley to the story I told the police.
I don’t know if Henley will ever fully move on from what happened to him, but DJ will follow up with him and explain everything that happened in detail once Nico is home.
Apparently, Donny had measures in place to help victims go into hiding and even fake their own deaths if necessary, but as long as the police don’t find any evidence incriminating them, Henley and Ed will continue living their normal lives.
Donny also had measures in place for making the police go away. They never follow up with me again about the story I told them. When I ask DJ why, she tells me she placed a call.
“Donny kept in touch with one of his old colleagues at the FBI,” DJ explains. “The agent doesn’t know the details of what we do, but he trusted Donny enough that he looks out for us when we need him—he called the local police and handled it.”
I wonder if this colleague knows about Nico. Whoever it is would have had to trust Donny a ridiculous amount not to turn Donny in for that.
DJ calls me on a Wednesday afternoon. I pick up so quickly that I drop the phone.
“Wanted you to be the first to know I’m bringing Nico home this afternoon,” she says. “We’re leaving in about an hour. Should be there by three.”
I watch the dust motes spiral in the sunlight, every second expanding around me. “He’s really coming home?”
“Really really.” DJ pauses. “But, Eden, I need to warn you… He’s not acting right. I know nothing about what happened other than what you said. He won’t tell me anything the Game Master did to get him to break, but… manage your expectations, okay?”
I told the others why Morrow switched his target from Griffin and me to Nico and me, but I didn’t give up any of the details. They belong to Nico and me. If he wants to tell anyone, he can.
I struggle to find even one word I remember how to say. “Okay.”
“See you soon,” she says, and hangs up.
I sit there, staring at my phone, trying to wrap my head around her words.
Nico’s coming home.
I spring into action, going straight for the shower.
My hair’s been in this braid for four days and probably smells like a locker room, and I can’t let that be the first thing he notices when he comes through the door.
I’ve become kind of a pro at wrapping my bandages, and I let the hot water sluice over me for a good half hour before getting dressed.
I wheel back out to find Griffin there, ready to carry my wheelchair down the stairs. A sandwich is waiting for me on the coffee table.
“You spoil me,” I say up at him.
“Someone’s got to make sure you feed yourself,” he says, plopping me on the couch. “Since it’s never you, the responsibility falls to me to feed and water you like a house plant.”
I eat the whole thing. It’s incredible. Griffin wanders back through the living room on his way to the gym and ruffles my hair, which makes me want to hug him.
Benji brings me chamomile tea before taking Bob for a walk.
Zoey sits in the armchair, eating a bag of pretzels and saying nothing.
I’ve seen Zoey more since escaping the trials than the entire time I’ve lived in the house.
I rest my head on the back of the couch, my eyes glued to the driveway. Every movement in the trees makes my heart jump, and then it’s not a car, and I deflate again. This is ridiculous. Nico is just a guy.
Except he’s not just anything. He’s something that my heart has never encountered before, that it doesn’t even have a name for.
I wonder if it’s possible to die from anticipation. I’m close to finding out when DJ’s Jeep turns into the driveway.
Bob growls. DJ climbs out of the driver’s side. I watch so closely as she walks around to the trunk, pulling out a folded wheelchair.
The passenger door opens, and my entire world narrows to a single point of focus.
Nico braces one hand against the door frame to leverage himself out, moving carefully like his body might betray him if he’s not paying attention.
He’s wearing sweatpants and an oversized hoodie that makes him look smaller than he is.
His stubble from the abandoned hospital has grown into a short beard, and his face is a canvas daubed with purple and yellow bruises, the edges fading from near black to sickly green.
His hair falls across his forehead in stiff strands and there’s a cut above his eyebrow that has scabbed over.
His feet are wrapped in bandages that match mine.
Even from here, I can see the tension in his shoulders.
I cup a hand over my mouth as I laugh.
DJ rolls the wheelchair up behind him and he collapses into it, his jaw tight with what I know is frustration. He must hate this. Hate needing help or being seen like this.
I scramble for my wheelchair.
The door opens.
“—told you that nurse was checking you out,” DJ says, her voice carrying into the house. “Did you see the way she kept finding excuses to come take your vitals?”
“DJ.” Nico’s voice cuts through her rambling. “Please.”
I push down hard on the rims, rolling myself out into the hallway.
Nico’s eyes lock on mine. The way his face crumples makes my throat close.
“Eden,” he says, and there’s so much in the way he says my name.
“Hi.”
DJ steps out from around him. “I’m going to… go check on literally anything else.”
I nod, but am unable to look anywhere else but at him. Nico stands up out of the chair and takes one unbalanced step toward me. I struggle out of my own chair and stagger toward him.
We collide in the middle of the hallway.
His arms come around me like vices, crushing me against him. My good hand comes around the back of his neck while my bandaged one is squished between us, and we’re sinking, knees giving out at the same time, until we’re crumpled on the floor.
Everything comes pouring out of me at once, and there’s no hope of me keeping it together.
“You’re here.” I sob into his shoulder. “You’re actually here.”
“I’m here.” He holds me even tighter. “I’m here. You’re here.”
“I’m here.”
I’m laughing even though tears are streaming down my cheeks.
I ease one of his hands from my shoulder to examine it.
His wrists have scabbed over. His tattoos are broken in places, but most of the ink has gone back to being clear against his pale skin.
His fingers curl around mine with only the smallest tremor.
“How do they feel?” I ask.
“I’m loving physical therapy,” he deadpans. “It’s so fun.” He laces his fingers through mine, giving a gentle squeeze that makes my breath catch. “I should regain everything.”
The relief that floods through me is so intense that I feel weightless. “Do they hurt?”
“I don’t care.” His hand holds my face, brushing away tears with the backs of his fingers. “Your hand—”
“Don’t care,” I say quickly, and his laugh makes my heart stutter.
He pulls me against his chest, resting his chin on the top of my head.“DJ told me what you did. She said you climbed out of the dumpster.”
“It was a small dumpster,” I say.
“You saved us,” he mumbles against my hair.
“You’re the one who saved us,” I say, pulling away so I can look him in the face. “I’m so sorry. I know what I asked you to do—what we did—I thought it was the only way out, and I know how hard that must have been for you, and you were protecting me the whole time, and I’m so—”
“Eden.” He brushes my hair out of my face. “Stop.”
I can’t stop. “I made you—”