Atticus stood watching his brother, hoarding this moment before things went wrong. If he stored it away, no matter what, he would have this one moment of peace.
"We're almost out of eggs," Ru called from the kitchen. "So we're going to have pancakes."
Time started again.
"Okay," Atticus called back. "I'll have him up in a minute."
Ukiah was sluggish to get roused and up the stairs. Atticus could feel his brother's bone-deep weariness as his body slaved to knit bones, repair organs, and deal with the massive blood loss that the mice represented.
At the top of the steps, though, Ukiah suddenly veered off toward the back door. The blanket around Ukiah's shoulders slipped to the floor as he opened the door and stepped out onto the deck. Hunching against the stiff cold wind sweeping off the ocean, the boy started for the railing, faltered, and came to a halt. Atticus felt disorientation flooding into his brother, sweeping away both dismay and sense of self.
He's never seen the ocean before!
Picking up the blanket, Atticus went out to rescue him. The feral look was gone, replaced by more human confusion and distress. Naked, the boy was shivering but too overwhelmed to move.
"Come on." Atticus wrapped the blanket around his brother's shoulders and pulled him back inside the house, shutting the door on the roar and the salt-laden spray.
"I could hear it roaring all night." Ukiah whimpered like a lost puppy, his gaze still trapped by the endless gray of ocean. "I could feel it pounding against the land, but I couldn't figure out what it was."
"It's the Atlantic Ocean."
Ukiah tore his gaze away, dismay creeping back in. "Where am I?"
If he'd never seen the sea before, he didn't know the New England coastline.
"Gloucester, Massachusetts," Atticus said. They had decided on the town in case—like Atticus—Ukiah had maps stored in his perfect memory. Gloucester faced water to its south, and had islands across its bay. Not a perfect match for Nantucket Sound, but Gloucester gave them a hundred-mile margin for error. They kept within the state to account for the proliferation of Massachusetts license plates if they had to move him any distance.
"How did I end up here?"
"Ru and I drove in from Buffalo last night. We stopped at the Ludlow service area on the Mass Turnpike and found you locked in the trunk of a car." Atticus described the car, only to get a blank look and a slow shake of the head. "We were hoping you could tell us about it."
"Last thing I remember," Ukiah said slowly, "I was with Rennie in a parking garage."
Through years of experience, Atticus was able to treat the comment as just a data point and file it away to be reacted to later.
Ukiah eyed the cage of black mice on the kitchen's desk. "Are those my mice or yours?"
"Yours." It came out naturally, yet Atticus still found the concept of someone else that bled mice stunning. "All twelve. We've fed them."
On Ukiah's face, desire to remember everything forgotten warred with knowledge of his limits. He was too weak to take back the mice and he knew it.
"Eat and then sleep some more." Ru added water to the pancake mix and then started to stir. "You can deal with them later."
Ukiah grunted acknowledgment of this truth, eyeing the batter hungrily.
"Here." Atticus patted the stack of clothes he'd laid out for his brother. "Let's get you dressed first."
After two awkward minutes of Atticus trying to help Ukiah into the boxers, Ru took pity. "Why don't you cook, and I'll get him dressed?"
So they switched, Atticus lighting the gas burner on the range, while Ru helped Ukiah put on the boxers.
Atticus had always been too hurt to appreciate Ru's bedside manner—he hadn't noticed how Ru could get another man in and out of underwear with such clinical impassiveness. Sweatpants and a pair of tube socks followed boxers.
"Sweater?" Ru asked after watching how carefully Ukiah moved his newly mended arm.
"No, please!" Ukiah winced at the thought.
"Then that will have to do for a while." Ru resettled the blanket around Ukiah's shoulders.
Ukiah fingered the sweater where it lay on the counter, then checked its Lands' End label. "I have this sweater too. Same green color." He inspected his borrowed sweatpants, and then—tugging the front of his sweatpants open—he eyed his boxers.
"Can I take a look-see?" Ru asked.
"What?" Ukiah snapped shut his sweatpants.
Ru looked puzzled and then suddenly grinned. "Your ribs! Can I see them?"
"Oh!" Ukiah opened up his blanket wrap. "There shouldn't be much to look at."
Ru ran light fingers over Ukiah's chest. "It just blows me away how you two heal. Just apply food and sleep. It ends up being like making bread. Cover the mess up with a blanket and keep it warm, and poof, it transforms itself while you aren't looking."
Ukiah struggled not to laugh. "My ribs still hurt like hell."
"Yes, but they look fine. Here, let me see your arm. Yes, that's healing nicely."
"I've got some use of it back." Ukiah demonstrated. "But the slightest pressure will break it again."
Ru produced a sling and tucked Ukiah's arm into it. "Try not to use it, then."
"Check." Ukiah fiddled to make the sling comfortable.
So the feral Dog Warrior did have a civilized side, once he healed up.
Atticus lifted the first of the pancakes off the griddle and drowned them in syrup for Ukiah. The next batch Atticus split with Ru, but the rest, a monster's share, went to his brother.
After wolfing it all down and licking his plate clean, Ukiah looked longingly at the empty bowl. "Is there anything else?"
"Oh, what pleading puppy eyes." Ru stood and tousled Ukiah's hair, ending the move with a pat on the head. "I had a dog that would beg at the table with that same woebegone look."
Ukiah grinned in response to the affectionate teasing. "Bowwow."
"I could never say no." Ru studied the contents of the dark refrigerator. "How about a steak?"
"Oh, yes! Please," Ukiah said. Whoever raised Atticus's brother had at least taught him manners, despite all the feral appearances. "The power's out?"
"Yes," Atticus said, and then, sensing the coming question, added, "The phone is still dead."
"I did manage to charge up my phone before the electricity went out." Ru slid his phone across the counter. "You can make a call while I get this started. Try to keep it short—it's the only working phone we have."
Ukiah took it and wobbled off across the open downstairs to the farthest corner for privacy.
Ru wore a slight puzzled look on his face as he did a quick wash on a skillet.
"What?" Atticus asked.
"Just thinking on differences."
"Like what?"
"It was weeks before you'd let me touch you that casually." Ru dried the skillet. "You hated it anytime I'd breach your personal space. You still don't like strangers touching you." With a glance toward the roiling surf, Ru added, "And I've never seen you space out like he just did with the ocean."
"I was over the worst of it by the time we met," Atticus said. "I would lose it like that every time they'd move me to a new foster home. It always made a wonderful first impression on foster parents."
The quiet conversation across the room had a familiar cadence—a peppering of questions with lots of silences that indicated listening. Atticus had made many such calls— What happened while I was dead?
Ukiah came back, silent and sullen. The feral look was back in his eyes. What triggered the sudden change? He put the phone down beside him on the counter, not offering to return it.