“Brent, it’s not even sunrise.”
“I was going to walk around to your window, since I figured force of habit might have woken you up by now,” Brent said, “but I noticed the light on here.”
“What happened to eight?”
“Brent?” Cooper’s mother sounded concerned. “Come in. Is something wrong?”
The question made Brent flinch. Cooper took a closer look, and realized Brent’s face was pale and his lips were pinched. He was also soaking wet.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he answered, a little too quickly. Cooper could tell his mother didn’t believe a word Brent said, either, but she didn’t object when he added, “I’m an early riser. I know Cooper is, too. I figured it might be all right to stop by.”
“Come in,” Cooper said.
Cooper’s mother stepped into the hall for a moment, and came back with a dry towel from the linen closet, which she handed to Brent. He accepted it with a soft thank-you and tried to dry off a little as she said, “I’m going to head to bed. You two boys can talk.”
She obviously didn’t believe Brent’s assurances that nothing was wrong—neither did Cooper—but knew better than to press the issue.
The instant she had closed the door, Brent seemed to collapse. He barely made it into a chair, and then he leaned forward until his forehead was on the table and took deep, shuddering breaths.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s raining.”
Cooper sat down next to him, confused. “What’s going on?”
Brent shook his head. “I don’t know. I could sense it though, with the same part of me that hears thoughts, for just a minute, and it was …” He put his head back down, and rubbed his temples. “I don’t know. The storm kept my mum awake. I needed to go somewhere else. It’s raining too hard to go to the woods.”
Brent wasn’t making any sense, but Cooper wasn’t going to question him at that moment. He just asked, “Can I do anything for you?”
Brent shook his head. “Just … be quiet a minute.”
The request was made in vain—the phone rang at that moment, making Brent wince as Cooper hurried to answer it. It wasn’t unusual for Cooper to be up at this hour, but why did everyone else seem to be?
“Hello?”
“Cooper?”
He recognized John’s voice, and clutched the phone tighter. No one called at this hour with good news. “What’s happened?”
“Delilah’s in the hospital.”
18
While Brent curled up to nap on the couch, wearing one of Cooper’s father’s shirts as his own dried on the back of a kitchen chair, Cooper carefully worked his body through the exercises his physical therapist had prescribed. Supposedly, if he did them daily, he would maintain nearly normal functioning.
The fear of ending up off his feet again, however, wasn’t what had driven him to be diligent that day. He was waiting for a phone call. He had been waiting for almost three hours. The sun had started to rise, and the rain had let up a little, but still no more word since John’s call. All he knew was that Delilah was in critical condition. John hadn’t had a lot of details and the hospital hadn’t been willing to give many more when Cooper asked. But Cooper was on the list of people who would get a call when anyone learned anything, most of all if Delilah was going to be okay and when she could have visitors.
He grabbed his cell phone when he heard ringing, only to find it still dark.
Brent let out a grunt and rolled enough to pull his own phone out of his pocket and answer with a sleepy, “Yo.” He yawned. “Hi, Ryan … Yeah, I heard. … No, I don’t know anything you don’t know.” Brent sat up straighter, the last vestiges of grogginess disappearing from his expression. “I heard that, too. What was—”
His eyes widened as Ryan must have answered. Cooper crossed the room, but couldn’t make out what Ryan was saying.
Brent nodded as he said, “Yeah, we’ll be there.”
He clicked the phone shut, and then looked up at Cooper.
“I have good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is, Ryan says Delilah is probably going to be okay. She nearly drowned—no, I guess she actually drowned, since the paramedics had to resuscitate her. The bad news …” He hesitated. “Ryan says she left his house with Samantha. So, either the force that overpowered Delilah—probably the same one that nearly put me out of commission—was Samantha, or it was something else Delilah summoned. In which case Ryan says, and I quote, ‘A little fish of a power, like Samantha seems to be, may not have fared well.’”
Cooper had to sit down as he felt himself pale. “I haven’t seen Samantha since Ryan’s house.”
“Ryan recommends we go to the hospital and see if Samantha is with Delilah. He’ll meet us there.”
“Brent—” How could he even begin to express the way his heart was pounding in his throat at the thought of driving down that road … the one he had been on months ago … to the hospital where he had spent weeks. …
Of course, he didn’t need to say it out loud.
“You must have been on that highway since the accident.”
Cooper shook his head. “I was nearly unconscious from medication when I came home from the hospital, and my physical therapist is local. And …” He looked out the window. “This doesn’t look like good driving conditions.”
“Listen. Delilah and I didn’t part on the kind of terms where I’m inclined to go racing to her hospital bedside, and I can’t check on Samantha without you,” Brent said. “I’m willing to drive you there so you can do both those things, but only if you have the courage to get in the damn car. Otherwise, Ryan will just deal with Samantha as he sees fit.”
That was enough to motivate Cooper, even if Delilah’s condition hadn’t been. Two people he cared about were in danger, one of whom had been at his bedside when he woke from nightmares of hell and had stayed with him as he struggled back from it.
Samantha couldn’t be evil.
Once Cooper was determined to go, there was still his mother to convince. She looked like she wanted to lock them both in the house, despite Brent’s repeated assurances that he would practically crawl down the highway, and Cooper’s promise to call when they reached the hospital.
“If the rain gets heavy again, you’ll pull over instead of trying to bear it out, right?” she asked Brent.
“We’ll pull over and we’ll call you to let you know we’re delayed,” he said for perhaps the fifteenth time.
Cooper and Brent left the instant she nodded, before she could consider changing her mind.
“We’ll only be on the highway for fifteen minutes or so,” Brent said as he backed out of the driveway. “If you can’t handle it on your own, I’ve got half of my mother’s medicine cabinet in the glove box. We can always pass you off at the hospital as grieving and distraught, even if you’re drugged out of your mind.”
“I’ll manage without,” Cooper said, looking doubtfully at Brent. The casual offer made Cooper realize that, if it weren’t for Brent’s telepathy and Cooper’s extraordinary circumstances, there would probably be more reasons for their not associating than different schools.
Fear took hold as they approached the highway, where other cars were streaming past at disconcerting speeds despite the weather.
“Breathe,” Brent whispered as he checked his blind spot, and merged onto the highway. Cooper pressed his palms to the dashboard, and drew deep breaths, closing his eyes tightly and wishing he could drown out the rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of Brent’s wipers struggling to keep the windshield clear. Summer vacation. Delilah’s parents had a time-share down Cape, and had offered it to the team for a weekend. With summer jobs starting and some parents’ nervousness about sending their kids off even under the strict supervision of Delilah’s mother,
