"Part of the pattern," his voice husked painfully. "We keep finding it." Wrapped in blankets, he huddled on the sofa. "Not just madness in the family, though we see that too, but that the families develop ways of...suppressing." Steve barely shrugged, too exhausted to even hold his head up. "Maybe it works...sometimes...a little...or maybe Ramsey never really was one of them. Probably he never...changed...the way the girl did." His right arm hung in a makeshift sling, and he lifted the cup carefully with his left hand, steam curling as he sipped. "At least not so much." One side of his face had mottled a deep purple, the bruise spreading down his neck. The flesh around his eyes looked gray with weariness, the bloody rims giving him an unhinged appearance. Also, he hadn't shaved in days.
She thought he looked beautiful. "About the boy, Steve. About his not being...one of them."
"I swear...when I look at him..."
"He's still out." Nervously, she glanced toward the bedroom. "I checked a few minutes ago. He looks so...fragile, but I never could have made it back to the jeep if he hadn't come to and helped me."
"I meant to kill him." He followed her gaze.
She nodded. "But you couldn't." Her fingers closed tightly around a bottle of aspirin on the table. "Are you breathing any easier now? You sound better."
He turned away. "The world doesn't need more monsters."
"Maybe he can become something more than that, Steve."
His laugh startled her.
"What?"
"That's what she'd have said."
"Swell." She stirred her tea. "You're not a...what was it you called yourself? A phantom? You can still have a life, Steve. Right?" When he didn't respond, her throat tightened. "He should be in the hospital."
"He's not hurt. That in itself tells me something. All he needs is rest, and he's getting that here."
"He could be developing pneumonia right now. So could you."
"Kitten."
"Don't. He had a fever yesterday."
"So you said." Sighing, he ran his good hand through his hair.
She watched him. Through the sheer curtains, dawn light picked out gray threads with merciless clarity.
"Kit, he's been through a shock worse than anything we can imagine." His eyelids, purple with fatigue, drifted closed. "Let's just hope it's over."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I always seem to end up on this sofa, don't I?" Sighing, he forced himself to stay focused. "The best thing we can do for him is to let him be. Maybe try to get some food into him. And just be here for him. That's all. Who knows what it would do to him if people started asking questions? Doctors? Cops? Think about it. Dredging up the mother's death from all those years ago. The father. The brother. That poor damned sister. How many more times does he have to be pushed to the edge? Can you honestly say you don't think he'd wind up in the same hospital Ramsey broke out of?"
"I..."
"And probably for life. When they first sent Ramsey there, was he much older than Perry is now?" He put the cup down sharply, flexed his left hand. "All those years of treatment. Didn't seem to do him much good, did it?"
"But..."
"If we took him to a hospital, how could we even begin to explain?" With a stiff movement, he rubbed his face. "Have you thought about that?" His words grew faint, blurred.
"What?"
"The father too. Maybe the father. Maybe something...some sadistic ritual...maybe it helped him repress the changes in himself. Maybe that's why he..."
"You should be in the hospital yourself."
"...fine..."
"No, you're not. And you're not making any sense."
"...maybe it saved him for a while but turned him into a different kind of monster. The father, I mean."
"Stop it."
"The things he did to those kids. Maybe to the mother too."
"And it might make it harder for you to get your hands on Perry?" Her eyes glinted like broken glass. "If he went to a hospital?"
Wearily, he reached across the table to stroke her arm.
"I know you're tired." She shrugged away. "But these things. What did you call them? Mutations? Tell me more about them. Why is it happening?"
"We don't know why."
"I wish you'd stop saying 'we' like that. You haven't done that since the first time we..." She flinched. "I thought it was always boys."
"So did we. Sorry. So did I. She may have been the first. In all the stories, it's always been young males."
"Why now?"
He shook his head.
"But you have some idea."
He turned to the window, and the tension in his neck told her how much the concentration cost him. "Maybe they've always been there," he replied at last. "Maybe the world has finally changed enough for us to see them. Maybe a new world needs..."
Something like a laugh caught in her throat. "And these are your new people?" The teacup rattled in her hands. "Mass murderers?"
He didn't turn to face her. "I think that's...some sort of...phase...something they're working through."
"Terrific. Slaughter therapy."
"One of the people we...I...work with is a psychologist." He stared hard at the table. "I know someone who believes the metamor...the changes...stem from the effort to repress what's growing in them. This power. Throbbing. Inside them. Scares them. They fight it. The people around them teach them it's evil, so they fight harder. That's what warps them, twists them into monsters. She tries to help them stop being afraid. She tries to help them accept the change and channel it into..."
"Them?"
"What?"
"You said, 'them.' How many? No. Don't tell me. I don't think I can handle any more of this right now." Against her will, a sob burst from her. "Are they all...demented? Deformed? What good does it do any of them, this place? Are they all children?"
"I know a little boy." When at last he spoke, his voice seemed to come from a long way off. "A strange little boy everybody used to think was mentally defective." He smiled faintly to himself. "Not so little anymore. And so smart it scares the hell out of me."
"It's hers, isn't it? Her son. That woman you say I remind you of." She forced a shattered grin. "And what about us? Just tell me now so I'll know. I can handle anything, just so I know what's coming." The words tasted like acid in her mouth. "Were you just using me?" She forced herself only to watch as his expression knotted, forced herself not to speak, not to touch him, only to wait for his words. But no response came. Finally, she turned away.
As though released, he leaned forward, and his hand went to her waist.
"Don't." She choked back the words. "You love her." Her fingers flew to her lips.
"I." He spoke the syllable with unconscious finality, forming neither the beginning of a sentence, nor the end of one. "She." He tried again. "They need me to..."
"Stop telling me what she needs. What do you need? What do you want? Tell me that for once. Just tell me."
Behind them, a vase hit the floor and shattered.
"No, leave it. The cat's always knocking things over."
"The cat ran away, Kit."
A row of books slid from the bookcase to the floor.
"What's going on? Is the place collapsing? Should we get out?"