“I have my first aid kit,” I said, still not daring to speak above a whisper. Scrabs couldn’t hear high-frequency sounds as well as we did, so it was unlikely they could hear our voices even at a normal volume. Still, a whisper seemed safer. “You want me to pull that claw out for you? It’s going to get infected.”
He hesitated. “OK.”
“I don’t have to, if you want to leave it.”
“No, just do it. Please.”
“Can we use the flashlight on your phone for a minute? I can’t see anything.”
He shifted a few times until a bright light clicked on.
“Thank you.” I grabbed the antibiotic wipes, ointment, and all the bandages I had. I wedged them against the wall and my thigh. I leaned forward to examine his leg, and he shifted the light to it.
I tugged up his pant leg to reveal where the claw was stuck. It wasn’t a huge piece, but there were three puncture holes around it, blood seeping out of them.
“OK, you can’t scream,” I said, glancing back at him. He nodded and clapped a hand over his mouth.
“On three. One . . . two . . . three.” I yanked the claw out. He made a very soft muffled noise, and his body jerked. I carefully nudged the claw into the corner by his other foot.
I grabbed the wipes and swiped them over the whole area, then used one to put the ointment on. I covered what I could with bandages, though we didn’t have quite enough.
“That should do it for now,” I whispered, pulling his pant leg over the bandages. I settled back down next to him.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
“You’re welcome.”
We sat in silence after that, the light beneath the door fading completely. An hour passed, which I only knew because Edan checked his phone once, then peeked out the door again.
“Still a couple moving around,” he whispered.
“What if they don’t all sleep at the same time?”
“Then I guess we’re stuck in here forever. Hope you don’t have to pee.”
“Edan.”
“What?”
“I’m serious. What are we going to do if they don’t sleep soon?”
“What do you say we revisit that in a few hours?” His voice was barely a whisper, but it was steadier than mine. “It’s only nine. Let’s save panicking for like . . . four a.m. Four a.m. seems like a good time to panic, right?”
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed that he was being so flip. But his composure did make me feel like I should be calm too. We wouldn’t accomplish anything by panicking.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said.
“It’s not your fault,” I said quietly. I couldn’t reasonably blame him for a scrab attack.
“Well, it’s my fault that I tried to outrun a scrab. I took an entire class once about how that doesn’t work and what to do instead.”
“With Grayson? Julian said he’d seen you training with Grayson in New York.”
“Yeah, he took me along pretty often. He’d go after volunteering at the drop-in center, so he’d bring me along if I was around.”
“The drop-in center?” I asked, even though I knew what it was.
“I heard that Julian told you how I met Grayson.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He paused. “I know Grayson said not to tell everyone, but I don’t care. It’s not a secret.”
“That you were homeless?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you told other people on the team?”
“Patrick. But the two of you are the least gossipy people I’ve ever met. If I ever do have secrets, I’m telling the two of you. No one will ever find out.”
“You and Patrick are friends now, huh?”
“I think so.” His voice changed, like he was embarrassed. “I apologized for robbing him. He was very nice about it.”
“Patrick’s nice about everything.”
“True. But I—”
“What?”
“I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses.”
“You can tell me. There’s, like, a fifty percent chance we’re going to die tonight, so you might as well tell me now.”
“Thanks, that makes me feel better.”
“Any time.”
He let out a breath of air that was almost a laugh. “I’d just spent all my money getting down to Atlanta. Grayson didn’t even know I was coming, I hadn’t seen him in a few months. I ate all my snacks on the bus ride down, so I was hungry, and you know how they didn’t feed us at tryouts.”
I really did.
“I couldn’t bring myself to ask Grayson for help, because I knew he was busy, and I hate asking him for anything. He always gives me way more than I asked for, and it just makes me feel like shit, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
“I don’t mean that to sound bad. He has good intentions. It’s just that if I’d told him I had no money for food, he would have handed me a hundred-dollar bill. And I know that it makes, like, no sense to turn around and rob people instead, but at least I figured things out myself, you know? Does that sound stupid? It probably sounds stupid.”
“No, it doesn’t sound stupid,” I said. “I get. I really get it, actually. I didn’t have any money or food at tryouts either. I practically fainted on Julian the last day.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know anyone, and I couldn’t bring myself to beg someone for food.” I thought of that convenience store, of the granola bar I’d considered stealing. I would have, if I’d thought I could get away with it. The only thing that stopped me was the shame of getting caught.
“I don’t mean to imply that I only stole that one time because I was hungry,” Edan said. “I’ve done it a lot, honestly. Often because I was desperate. But sometimes just because it was convenient. It was both that night with Patrick.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked. “Turning over a new leaf?”
“Yeah. Well, that, and because it was Grayson. I wanted to help him. I owe him a lot.”
“Why do you owe him?”
“He was always just a great friend,” Edan said. “He’s
