“Fuck this,” Jessica muttered, giving another vicious tug to Theo’s hair. “We’re leaving. You try to stop me, and I’ll cut his fucking head off.”
“Slow down,” Somers said. “We’re just talking—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Jessica gave another jerk, trying to force Theo toward the door, but Theo could barely hobble.
“He can’t walk,” Auggie said. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Theo said, trying to move faster.
“Stop,” Auggie shouted. “He’s slowing you down. Just leave him, and I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Theo said, but the word was mumbled. He couldn’t seem to string anything more complicated together.
Jessica’s breathing whistled in Theo’s ears. She grunted and swore under her breath as she dragged Theo toward the kitchen. Theo yelped as his weight came down on his bad leg, and he started to fall before Jessica yanked on his hair and he managed to right himself.
“Just stop,” Auggie said, stumbling after them. “You’re hurting him!”
“Don’t fucking move,” Jessica screamed. She came unhinged, shoving Theo aside, turning on Auggie, the knife slashing out.
Theo saw the knife, only the knife, the knife that was spearing toward Auggie’s belly. Theo half fell and half threw himself into the path of the blade. He felt it connect, felt the impact first like someone shoving him, and then a sharp, stinging heat in his side.
He landed on his back. He was staring up at Jessica when a bullet struck the side of her head, and bone and brain erupted. Then blackness rolled in, and Theo felt hands turning him, hands on his cheeks, Auggie’s voice saying, “Theo, Theo, hey, stay with me.”
In the distance, Renard Upchurch, who had played softball with Ian on the department team, was saying, “I had to do it; she was going to kill them.”
And it was raining; Theo felt the drops, hot, falling on his face. His last thought before darkness towed him under was that the fool in Lear was right: the rain it raineth every day.
21
On Friday, they wouldn’t let Auggie see Theo at all, so he spent the whole day pacing the floors of Wahredua Regional. He wasn’t sure if he said a single word that whole day. He just remembered fragments of it: speeding up so he could pass a middle-aged man on a walker; the smell and crinkle of the paper towels as he dried his hands in a public restroom; the fluorescent lights becoming a headache that flickered just behind his eyes. His phone buzzed from time to time; most of them were alerts from Instagram and Facebook, which he ignored. One was a text from Fer: Dickcheese, how were the first two weeks of school? He ignored that one too.
On Saturday, they moved Theo out of the ICU and into a step-down unit, where visitors could only stay for an hour at a time. Theo was asleep for the whole hour; the nurses wouldn’t tell Auggie anything, and on the way out, he bumped into a wiry guy with buzzed hair who glared at Auggie like he wanted to murder him. Auggie was pretty sure this was the infamous Cart. He hung around for the next hour until they kicked Cart out, and then Auggie tried again. They wouldn’t let him back in the room. Sometime in the afternoon, he got another text from Fer: Cumbreath, answer my text. Auggie just put his phone back in his pocket.
On Sunday, they moved Theo into a shared room. When Auggie finally was allowed into the room, Theo was asleep again; Auggie didn’t care. He dropped into a chair. He figured out what he was going to do if anyone—in his mind, anyone looked a lot like Cart—tried to make him leave. Auggie figured he’d go for the nads first. And then he fell asleep, shivering and uncomfortable in the molded-plastic chair.
He woke once when he thought he heard the door open and close. Then, later, he woke partway to a pained grunt and the realization that he was warm. He opened his eyes.
“Oh my God,” Auggie said.
Theo was leaning over the railing of his bed, trying to adjust the blanket he’d thrown over Auggie. He was pasty and sweaty, his face covered in bruises and bandages from the beatings Jessica had administered. He had huge dark rings under his eyes, and he looked like he needed to sleep for a week, but he just kept fussing with the blanket and grunting when he moved the wrong way.
“Oh my God,” Auggie said, surging up from the chair and knocking the blanket to the floor. “You’re awake.”
“Do you know how long it took me to get that on you?” Theo said with a roll of his eyes. “It was like playing ring toss.”
“Oh my God,” Auggie said, his eyes stinging. He stepped forward, stopped, examined Theo for some sort of sign.
Theo waved him forward, and when Auggie was within range, he pulled him into a one-armed hug. He grunted again when Auggie tightened the embrace and whispered, “A little less enthusiasm, please.”
Auggie thought he was laughing at Theo’s comment; then he realized, after a few seconds, he was crying, crying so hard he thought he was coming apart.
Theo just held him and said, “It’s ok, it’s ok, I’m fine,” laughing awkwardly between rounds, his arm never loosening around Auggie.
“Ok,” Auggie finally said, standing up and wiping his face. “Ok. Oh my God. You’re awake.”
“Uh huh,” Theo said with a smile. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Auggie wiped his face again. He was grinning so hard it hurt. “You dumbass! What the hell were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“Yeah, well,” Theo said, “I was thinking about all the Dorito crumbs I needed to clean out of my couch. Getting stabbed with a knife seemed like a better option.”
“Don’t joke about this,” Auggie said. “No jokes. This is not funny!”
Theo shrugged; he still had that small smile almost hidden by his beard. “Did you
