STRANGER DANGER - PART 5

When Nick came to, the light outside the window had shifted. He estimated it as a couple of hours. Alicia was asleep next to him, her hand on his chest, her arm over his head. She didn't wake when he stirred, despite his body shaking.

His cheeks and forehead were burning, he could feel the fever still holding its position and gaining strength. But it was like, beneath the warmth of it, he couldn't shake the cold. It was a hangover without the nice memories of the party responsible. He wanted to be sick, but there was nothing left inside of him to discard. He was a frame that could barely move. And yet, as if to prove it one more time that there was always a way or two for things to get worse, he needed to pee. Carefully, not to wake Alicia, he raised his head to assess his path. The bathroom door was right there, barely three feet from the bed, but he had to climb over his sister, and he wasn't sure he could even roll off the bed on his own if she wasn't there.

Moving like a sloth, with every little shift reverberating with more pain, he took her hand off him and snuck toward the foot of the bed. Troy was sleeping on the floor, blocking another possible spot for Nick to step.

Grimacing mutely, he finally managed, and quietly closed the door to do his business. There wasn't much, but then again, he was down to the vital resources of his body that shouldn't be leaving it if there was nothing new coming in. He felt worse after he was done, the bathroom darkened dangerously for a moment, and he thought he was going down.

He didn't, but it took him a bit to refrain from being sick. His side was throbbing like an additional infected heart, and his real heart dashed around madly, making him dizzy.

He was barely out of the bathroom when the lights went out in his head.

Troy woke up to a heavy thud and was instantly alert, confused in his addled mind that the crazy lady or the wasted had gotten into their room. Alicia, too, was awake again. It took her a second to realize her brother was no longer in her arms and for Troy to find him passed out on the floor. He crawled the short distance to Nick on his hands and knees, extending a hand to check for his pulse out of habit and then rolled him over onto his back. Alicia had joined him, low to the floor, her hand upturned and pressed to Nick's forehead. She scrambled to look at his wound again. It didn't look infected but it appeared nasty as all hell.

"We need to find water. I need to get him cleaned up properly."

There was still an hour or two of sunlight left.

"I'll go back to Eldorado."

"What?" Alicia looked up from where she'd been tending to her brother. "No, that's not a good idea. She could still be there."

"So, what? I know she's out there and, unlike Nick, I'll be prepared for her."

"We know what she's capable of."

"Yeah, hiding in the shadows. She's a coward."

"Even so. Don't underestimate her."

"I'm not, Alicia." Troy pushed up off the floor, stretching out the aches that had accumulated in his neck and shoulders from the position he'd been sleeping on the floor.

"We should all go."

"Nick isn't fit to travel at the moment and you need to stay with him. Unless you'd rather I did?"

Troy claimed one of the energy drinks, screwed off the cap, not bothering with the push top as he took a small sip, something to help him rid himself of his dry mouth. Alicia looked conflicted.

"I'll be fine."

"Our radios are dead."

"They're useless anyway if she's still listening. Here's a deal, if I'm not back by the end of tonight or even tomorrow morning, granted you wait that long, assume that I'm dead and take Nick and get out of here. Find a house the two of you could hole up in for a few days."

Troy retrieved his pipe, checked how many bullets were left in the gun he'd confiscated from the stranger, and then Alicia earlier and handed it to her. She took it. "I suggest you go sparingly with that and keep it as a last measure. With any luck, one of those cars outside might work, too. If it comes to that."

Unfortunately, he couldn't leave the vehicle for them, although if Eldorado were closer, he might have. Alicia nodded as he lifted Nick off the floor and deposited him on the bed again.

"Oh, and one last thing," Troy said as he ambled to the door, removing the chair from beneath the handle, setting it aside so she could replace it once he was outside. "If anyone other than me knocks on this door, don't hesitate, you use those last bullets and save yourself the hassle of worrying whether its friend or foe. That lady may be batshit crazy but she's smart. She said she wasn't done with Nick and we know she's capable of getting people to do her dirty work for her."

Alicia barely acknowledged his parting words but the dread was obvious on her face.

"I'll see you in a few hours."

He walked out and immediately got into the car, setting off down the road, heading back in the known direction.

"It's a beautiful thing," Jeremiah utters, turning the polished revolver with its white handle, admiring it like some rare jewel. He holds it out toward Nick, a smile on his face Nick's sure he scarcely ever spared either of his sons. Kind, inspired, his eyes glistening in the orange flickers of the fireplace he helped Nick restore.

Nick makes no move to accept the gift. "But it's not my thing."

A shadow passes across Jeremiah's face, his eyes dim as he lowers his hand with the pistol.

He chuckles with no humor. "Of course. You don't need a gun to kill. Your mother, your sister can do it for you. Hell, Troy will be happy to oblige. What does it make you, Nicholas?"

Nick flinches at hearing the name that deepens the wound his words leave in his soul. There's nothing Nick can say to change that because the old man is right. Absolutely and irrevocably right.

"While you draw breath, you kill. When you die - you become honest about it."

Jeremiah's mouth spreads in a grin, and he starts to cackle. Terror roots Nick in place as he approaches, his hand still reaching for him offering the pistol.

Nick gasped, jerked away, and pain flooded his body like a broken dam. He groaned, still scared that the old man's hand would reach him.

The cruiser was as they'd left it when Troy reached town, only the battery had died and the dead had moved on, probably to venture in deeper and reclaim the small town for themselves.

He headed for the gas station and parked, getting out cautiously, half expecting the woman to know that he was already in town again and to be watching his every move.

But how would that even be possible? She might come off supernatural and like she had some vast power of deduction, but she was nothing if not lucky.

He popped the tab on the gas tank, checked the machine he'd parked next to make sure there was something left, and filled her up, removing the two empty jerry cans from the trunk to do the same.

He hadn't been working too long when one of the wasted had sniffed him out and started wandering toward him, the disguise he'd been wearing hours earlier no longer worth a damn. Troy intervened before he got too close, delivering a series of hard hits that split his head open like a ripe melon. When he was down, Troy used the pipe to stab him through the gut and proceeded to paint himself anew. He hated this routine and the stink, but given the time constraint and the fact that darkness was on the horizon, there really was no point in trying to fuck around enjoying the kill when he'd already had his fill for the day. His muscles were heavy and aching from the overexertion in their prior rescue.

He returned to the gas tank, checked to see if it had finished—which it hadn't—and moved on in search of a tap. He found one around the back of the building and breathed a sigh of relief when water burst from the spout. It wasn't perfect but it also wasn't a gift horse they could kick in the mouth. He switched it off and headed back to the car. Now that he knew there was something he could grab and carry, he had to find something he could hold it in and travel with. He removed the extension from the side of the car, secured the cover, and snapped the flap in place, leaning in through the window to turn on the ignition to see how full it had gotten. The needle spiked the F. He undid the cap on the jerry can and jammed the hose inside and kept it there.

He filled both cans, replaced the hose on the machine, wondering how many trips he'd be able to make like that before the fuel was entirely gone, and placed the extra canisters in the back of the trunk.

There were two other dead alerted by the small pitch in noise and stumbling toward it, practically seeing through Troy as he approached them and quickly took them out. If he could help it, if he had the strength, he didn't give the ghouls the opportunity to add to whatever force might stumble upon them in the future. Troy liked to pre-plan, to play it smart, and refused to take on more than he believed he could handle.

He avoided the diner, choosing instead to head for the medical center they'd bypassed before—scared it would be overrun with the dead—in favor of a smaller pharmacy. They'd wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. He parked close to the double doors and got out, greeted by the dead mindlessly pounding at the closed doors. There was no power to the source and the dead were trapped like rats in a cage. He considered breaking the glass, having seen that with accumulative force they could do it themselves, and decided against it. There was no need if he could help it to set them on the rest of the town. He climbed back into the car, slowly driving around the building until he approached the back. The crowd gathered there was smaller and so was the door.

He exited again and with pipe in hand, first checked the door, grateful to find it unlocked. Using his weapon, he shoved at the dead trying to teeter through the channel, drawn by the scraping sound the door had made, and easily delivered a killing blow to his skull, heavy deliberation that transitorily alerted more of the bodies pacing the lobby.

He let the door shut behind him and sidestepped them, confident in the trick that Nick had taught him and feeling like a ghost.

He navigated the medical center slowly, hindered only by the darker corridors that weren't lucky enough to get blasted with sunlight, and found the medications storage. A room fitted with bars and an equally secure door that in the past needed a key card or a series of keys to open. He stepped back, delivering a hard kick to the door, followed by another and another, using the pipe—when that force was unsuccessful—in an attempt to hammer the handle. All the noise brought more of the wandering dead, bodies that crept from holes he hadn't even seen and sent them flurrying in waves. He stopped, letting them walk past him aimlessly before picking off a straggler and refreshing his disguise, paranoid that they'd be able to see through it.

When he returned his attention to the door, a face appeared in the cloudy glass secured by bars, dashing away as if it had never been there like one of those bobbleheads you were able to smash in arcade games.

Was it the woman? The crazy lady?

Troy stepped to the left to brace his back against the wall on the opposite side of the door, away from the window she'd peered out from, and tapped against the panel with the pipe, gentler this time and like he was knocking politely.

"Go away! I'm armed!" The voice from inside yelled, female but not similar to that of the one that had tormented them through the radio the last day.

"Unlikely, lady, I have a friend in need of decent medical attention and this is the only place available for the next forty-eight miles or so."

"I will shoot you!" she challenged.

"You can try," Troy deadpanned and slid into a crouch, setting the tip of the pipe on the tiled floor like a crutch to think. If she could get out any other way, she'd have left by now or even before she heard him coming.

The cold claws of profound, primal fear grip Nick's heart when he sees the painfully familiar silhouette crouched on the floor between the pews. The light from the window spills over her hair in gold.

"Gloria," he breathes, unable to take another step, knowing what he'll see and yet incapable of turning away to run. Each foot weighs a ton, as though sinking into the wooden floor when she slowly rises from the body she's been squatting at. He glimpses another familiar face that makes him want to scream.

Troy's eyes are wide open staring at the ceiling as if he saw something incredible the second before he died.

(I FOUND GOD)

"I'll make you stronger," Gloria hisses in a horrible, undead wheeze as she limps toward Nick. A knife is jutting out beneath her left breast, a blotch of darkness around it marring the light summer dress she's been wearing for the past month as they've been holed up in this church.

He wants to scream, but there's no sound coming from his constricted throat. It takes all there is in him to back away slowly. There's a pool of black molasses around his feet, restraining his urges to flee.

"Nick! Nick!" Alicia stands behind Gloria, worried, and close to panic. "Nick, what is it? Nick! Nick, please, Nick!"

He can't answer her, and he can't fathom how she doesn't see what the fuck is wrong here. Gloria's almost upon him, her hands reaching for his shoulders, her fingertips clawing at his skin, and they are so cold, so damn cold as if made of ice. She wheezes, but he can no longer understand the words. It sounds like I'll take you home, or maybe she still wants to make him stronger. Blood is flushing in his ears, and he feels he will pass out again. The only reason he fights it is Alicia because Troy is starting to get up.

There is no life in his eyes anymore, no thought on his face – only 87 MINUTES written on his forehead in huge black letters. He approaches Alicia from behind, but she doesn't know… She doesn't see or hear him, her full attention locked on Nick.

"Nick, please, Nick! Wake up, Nick! Nick!"

Nick's back presses against the wall, and Gloria's fingers grab his neck. Her face is closing in, and so is the darkness that envelops him.

He feels a faint gratitude before all feelings are gone.

"Nick, please, Nick! Nick, wake up!"

He wasn't going to, his body convulsing like so many times when he was in withdrawal. She expected vomit to spray out of his mouth at any moment. It made her panic, and she let out a strained sob. Mom wasn't around to help. No one was. She was back in the world of shit, how Nick used to put it.

"Nick!" she pleaded, knowing he was too far out, but too desperate and scared to refrain. "Nick, please, wake up! Wake up!"

Tears spurted from her eyes, her shoulders shook as she wept, doing her best to keep Nick's shoulders pressed to the bed. She felt she wouldn't be able to stop if she continued, and then there was no way to tell how bad things went.

Nick needed her now more than ever, and she was all he had.

Alicia sucked in a torn breath of a drowning person, then another, pushing the tears aside. His jerks subsided, but he still had tremors, like he was too cold.

His skin was hot to the touch and dry. No sweat. It was weird. Alarming. She didn't know why, but intuitively felt a new bout of fear.

Something was wrong.

Maybe it was the wound. It wasn't bleeding, and Alicia counted her blessings for that. However, it might need to be patched up and she didn't know how to approach it. It was utterly out of her expertise and she drew a line on having to sew her brother's skin together. She wasn't even sure she'd let Troy do it if he knew how. Nick was in too much pain already.

What if he was dying? And she had no clue what to do. She didn't even have water to give him.

Her eyes squeezing shut as more tears welled up, she took her hands off him and hid her face in them, sitting with her back to him. She did her best to not let the sobs come through. She breathed, in and out, letting the dark soothe her for a moment, to let her find her footing once again.

When she turned back to Nick, the sight scared her anew. He was trembling with combers of chills, his side was hot to the touch, and so was his forehead. There could be infection settling in his wound, and it was a bad thought.

Alicia grabbed the energy drink Troy had drank from earlier and took a few gulps. She leaned in to make him drink, but stopped midway, scared to have him choke.

She put the bottle on her bedside table and pulled the covers to Nick, cocooning him in it to get him warmer if he was cold.

She sat over him, praying that Troy came back already. She didn't know if she could stay put if he didn't in the next hour. She didn't feel they had that long.

The dead were so senseless in reason that at times it stunned Troy that they'd overrun the world and so many living were lost to them. Why would God choose this as the new way to cleanse? He hadn't heard many reports on what it could be, if it was a virus that had gone wrong or something the military weaponized. The only mode they were on was survival, the rest he supposed they'd figure out when some numbers started weakening and those alive were outnumbering them ten to one. If he was honest, staring at this corridor, the way they drifted aimlessly seeking their prey, he doubted the living would ever get there.

How could they?

The dead were quite literally the essence of a biblical plague and the world was evolving to work in their favor as they sucked it dry of their last few manmade resources.

He delivered a sharp series of blows to the nearest dead's legs and watched him go down, his hands flailing before him, clawing the tile in search of the foe who'd wronged him. Troy finished him off with a hard thwack.

"Look, lady, night's closing in and I have no interest being in here when the sun goes down. Just give me some bandages, pain pills, and anything else to stave off infection and I'll be out of your hair."

For a time his statement was met with silence, and then she appeared in the window.

"You get me out of here and I'll give you what you want."

Troy stayed seated against the wall, letting her sweat it out as she'd done for him a minute ago, and then agreed. It wasn't as if the task was hard.

"Deal."

He pushed away from the wall and straightened up, trusting that she wasn't stupid enough to try and shoot him.

"You're young," she pointed out unnecessarily from behind the glass. She busied herself with the shelves, grabbing things he couldn't quite make out from his vantage point, tossing them all into a brown shoulder bag she had around her hip. Five minutes later, she undid the series of locks from the inside and swung open the door, holding a nine millimeter at level with Troy's stomach. "You think of taking this shit without getting me out of here first and I'll put a bullet in you so fast you'll barely know what hit you."

She talked a good game, but the way she was holding the gun, her hand shaking, Troy could tell she'd probably never fired the weapon more than once in her life.

He smirked. "You got it."

Another wasted started to trek toward them, shuffling on a foot that was mangled and twisted and barely holding on, bumping along the wall. He suspected that, when things hit, the locals flocked to the clinics, and turned this place into a quick breeding ground. He strode toward the figure, delivering a hard hit to the dead's head, smooshing it against the side of the wall and following it up with another to make sure it was down. The pipe was getting harder to keep a hold of, blisters had started to form in the middle of his hand from the earlier fight. He was pretty convinced he'd also sprained a finger.

"You coming?" he called over his shoulder impatiently.

The woman appeared but she wasn't alone. A boy of about five or six was on her hip, his tiny body shaking as if cold, his right leg strapped with gauze and bloodied.

"Was he bit?" Troy asked out of curiosity.

"We were overrun at the general store trying to get more food. I turned away for a second."

She didn't go into more detail and nor did Troy ask, though he did wonder, given the boy's height, weight, and age how long he'd take to turn once he succumbed to the illness.

Did she even know that he would? Had she seen it or had she only witnessed it after it had already happened? Or did she think that, because she'd saved him the pain of being thoroughly munched on, some band-aids would help? This town wasn't exactly a center of a city and who knew when last she'd been out of it?

Troy pressed a finger to his lips to silence the conversation and to keep them quiet, carefully steering them out of the clinic, taking out the few dead as they came upon them.

He let them exit ahead of him, closing the door behind them, sealing the rest of the dead inside, vowing he'd return at a later date to possibly clean out the medical pharmacy.

"How'd you even get in there?"

"A mother's desperation," she supplied.

Troy didn't believe it.

The sun was beginning to set and he was desperate to get back. The woman's features shone with consideration and then she walked toward the back of the car, setting her son down on the trunk, reaching into her bag to remove two boxes, a bottle of something, and a supply of bandages. He could see from a quick glimpse that it was all very similar to what she had, too.

"You shouldn't take those on an empty stomach."

"Is anyone's stomach full lately?"

She smiled sadly and removed her son from the car, hugging him to her.

"Don't suppose you happen to be a nurse?"

"I was a baker in my previous life. I still am when I can find the ingredients."

Troy didn't ask her how that was possible and nor did she supply him with any more, slowly walking away, turning around once only to thank him for his assistance, and then she was gone. He dropped the medicine into the back of the car, into the basket that held his Molotov cocktails, and slowly drove away in search of a container. Thankfully, with the mention of the general store, and a quick sweep, he'd managed to find a cooler and some still water. He packed them into the back of the car and headed to the garage, making quick work of filling the small cooler, a series of plastic cups laden in the back along with a couple of cans of beans, two-minute noodles, chips, and jerky.

An hour later, he arrived back at the motel. He turned off the ignition, scanning the parking lot for any signs of foreign life, and went to knock on the door.

"Alicia?" he called.

"Troy?" she called back a second later, sounding almost happy or grateful. There was a shift of furnishing that he couldn't see and then the door swung open.

"A souvenir from my travels," Troy teased, thrusting a water bottle into her hands, seeing her eyes were swollen from crying. "Is he okay?"

He squeezed past her and immediately walked to the bed. Nick looked worse than ever.

"Jesus, what happened?"

"I don't know. He just started convulsing—"

"Convulsing," Troy repeated, staring down at his friend, wondering if this was, in fact, the end and if there was anything else that they could do besides making sure he had something to drink and was fed. "Try and get that into him. I uh… I got some extra medication."

He took a step back and dashed to the car, removing the stuff from the basket, arms laden with the few parcels as he walked back in and dumped them on the bed. Alicia glanced at them and screwed the cap off the water bottle, her hand finding her brother's face, patting at his cheek, gently trying to coax him to the land of the living, the water bottle practically resting against his chin, just waiting for the sign so she could ply him with it.

"Nick, wake up. Nick, drink this—it's water."

A flickering blotch of light is above Nick, wobbling and shining through the thick of water over him as he's slowly surfacing. He has no thoughts of where he is and how, but the vision captivates him. A faint recollection of the yacht flows by; he never focuses on it. It doesn't seem important.

The closer he gets to that mysterious light shining above the surface, the more discomfort seeps into his body, like pricks and needles into a limb you've been sleeping on for the whole night.

There are voices, barely coming through the water, but they're there. Calling his name. He can't make out anything else. He's mourning the peace he feels he's had down here. There is not a part of him wishing to return to whatever is up there where the voices come from.

He remembers it's something bad, too bad to bear. Something like hell. Chaos. Pain.

More pain with every passing second. His body starts to shiver, the water's getting colder, with sudden flashes of heat, scorching him from the inside. It's a strange pain, unnatural and scary. But there is no way to stop the ascend.

"Nick, wake up. Nick…"

Another involuntary shiver, and he gasped for air, but water got in instead. His throat constricted, making him cough, which exploded into a throe in his stomach. Red fireworks blasted in his eyes. He emitted a hoarse groan, coughed, then more water seeped into his mouth and down his throat. He did his best to swallow it and realized he was desperate for it.

There were hands on him, voices that barely came through the rapid heart beating in his ears like drums on a rock concert. He drank while the water was coming, and while he could, then gasped for air, and they let him be as he tried to catch his breath. It was hard to make sense of what was happening. His vision was a blur.

He was biblically tired.

Alicia was thankful when Nick started to drink the offering, some spilling over his mouth as she attempted to funnel in more, feeling guilty and like she was doing too much at once when he started to cough. She drew back the bottle, letting him pace himself, and offered an encouraging smile.

When she was done and he appeared to have had enough, she set the bottle down on the bedside table and shuffled over to the medication, reading through the labels. There was codeine, antibiotics, bandages.

She popped the tab on the pain pills, tapped two out, and returned to her brother, reclaiming the water.

"They suggested he eat before taking that."

"They?" Alicia asked.

"A woman I met at the medical center."

Troy exited the motel room to retrieve the rest of the water from the car. He carried the cooler back inside and set it down on a cupboard so that she could use the small tap at the bottom when needed. He made two trips.

"Where did you find all this stuff?"

"The gas station. The general store. If we could find a stove, we could have noodles."

Alicia seemed uninterested in that fact for the time being, focused on cleaning her brother up properly. Troy stabbed a knife into the top of the bean can, cutting around it clumsily, yanking the metal up and open before handing it over to Alicia with a fork.

It was confusing as hell, but gradually, it was coming back. The motel room, Alicia, Troy, their struggle, which was Nick and only him.

"Alicia," Nick tried. His voice was still lost someplace in the draught, but he could whisper. He felt she scooted closer – she heard him. He tried to swallow, then persevered. "You sh— you… should… eat. Don't… be stupid… you need… strength."

He couldn't open his eyes. It was too much effort, like his eyelids were glued shut. It reminded him of the dreams he used to have as a school kid when he longed for more sleep and dreamt of being asleep on lectures. The teacher would find him dozing, but he for the life of him couldn't open his eyes and pretend to be lucid.

Now, it was as hard as in those dreams. So hard it barely seemed real, anymore. It meshed all together, and he found himself confused as slumber was pulling him deeper.

Alicia shook her head vehemently, as if he was able to see her and then set aside the pills she'd separated and the water. She had to figure out how to get it into his system.

"Crush it," Troy said as if reading her mind.

"What?"

"The codeine. Put one in the water. One in the beans."

He took the can from her, found the pills on the bedside table, and separated them, using the edge to break it up and the spork to crush it into a fine powder. Using his left hand, he swept it into the opening in the can and put them back down beside her where she could reach them.

He repeated the process with the other and funneled it into what remained of the water she'd been feeding Nick.

She said nothing as he left her to it, heading across the room to secure the door now that the sun was beginning to set and night was seeping in again.

"As soon as he is able to move and stay conscious, we should get out."

Alicia hemmed her agreement and eased onto the edge of the bed beside Nick, one hand resting on his chest, lightly tapping at his hot skin in an attempt to rouse him, to get him to open his eyes.

"You need to eat, Nick. You need to drink," she coaxed, spooning the contents from the can with a spoon, dabbing the end against his lower lip so that he could sample a taste and hopefully crave more.

Reality was a floor that kept wobbling under him. Nick felt like there was a rug that was constantly being yanked at so he was tripping. Alicia's voice came in and out like a badly controlled volume on a radio.

He was trying hard to hold on to it but felt he was failing.

"Alicia…" he whispered, having problems controlling his breathing. His pulse was racing, escaping from him. He smelled the food and his stomach churned. He sucked in an urgent breath and turned away from it, afraid to lose the water he had managed to keep down. "I can't… I can't… eat… just… water. You… have to… eat."

"You need to eat, Nick," Alicia maintained, setting aside the can she'd been trying to spoon-feed him, once again reclaiming the water bottle. She slid one arm under his head, trying to raise him slightly so she could bring the water to his mouth again and get some painkiller into his system. "Drink this. It'll help you. It'll make you feel better and soothe a bit of the pain."

At least she hoped so.

Something about it was bad, Nick knew. He knew it, but not in his head – that one was all corrupted and slow as a slug. He knew it in his gut, in his instincts that weren't connected to conscious thought. He didn't know what to say, however, nor had any stamina to. He just let her feed him more water while he still could manage to swallow. His body still felt the need for more. He hoped he could keep it in.

When he balanced dangerously close to being sick, he turned away again, and Alicia let him be. Controlling his breathing was another problem. Shivering and barely capable of hearing over his pulse beating in his ears, he tried to be still. It was a challenge, considering numerous spasms and throes assaulting him.

"Eat, Alicia," he whispered. "Please. I need… to pass out…"

Alicia didn't take long to give up, setting the bottle of water down next to him along with the food, allowing him to get sleep as he needed as she shifted off the edge of the bed and climbed to her feet.

"You've done all you can," Troy added, extending the can he'd been snacking on toward her. She looked down at it, scowling slightly as if the idea of swapping spit with him was something to be considered, and then she took it.

She stole a mouthful and handed it back to him, the two of them eating in silence as if they'd hit a treaty.

When they were done, she dumped the can, helped herself to water, and took a closer look at everything Troy'd managed to obtain on his trip. He strolled over to Nick and sat down beside him on the floor, leaning against the bedside table as a support, side-eyeing Nick while he drifted in and out of consciousness.

Alicia did a lazy inventory and then drifted off toward the bathroom, closing the door behind her, leaving the two of them alone for the first time.

Nick is in the burnt house on the ranch again. He skims his fingers down the blackened wall, then turns his hand to look at them. The finger pads are black.

"It always stays with you," a voice behind him says.

He turns to see Jeremiah leaning against the wall. He's wearing the same ironic smile he used to show he knew more than you thought.

"You can get right with it, or you can let it destroy you. What's it gonna be, son?"

Feeling sick to his stomach, Nick turns back to the black wall, taking in all its uneven terrain.

Pain seeped in, gradually but irrevocably. There was a white ceiling above him. Alicia wasn't by his side, but he could feel Troy was. Out of sight, and yet significantly present.

"Your old man's haunting my dreams," Nick uttered quietly. "I almost wish you never saved me."

Troy laughed softly.

"Try living with that voice for twenty-three years and let's revisit this conversation," he jibed, knowing Nick was having a hard time getting over the old Otto's murder. Troy had already forgiven him for that, in fact, despite how much he loved the old man, or at least at times thought that he did, being that he was one of the few to understand him—in theory– Troy had moved on. What was the point of grief? What did it help smothering yourself with regret when it was already done and there was nothing you could do to change it? "Let it go, man. Let him go. You did what you had to, the same way I did what I had to to get you back."

"It's not about him, anymore," Nick said, letting his eyes close again. Shivers ran through his body like breaths, and he felt half-dead. "Not just him. Whoever you traded 's on me, too. She'll kill them in my stead. All the ghosts in my head know this and ride me about it. And they're right."

"What makes you think she'll kill him? She didn't kill you. She could have but for whatever reason, she kept you alive and used you as bait. What makes you think she won't do the same to this trade-off? And besides, I doubt that if she does, that they'd be the first she's killed. That lady is crazy. Everything that's happened is on her. What you need to focus on is healing up."

It wasn't a surprise that Troy thought so. Didn't mean Nick ever shared that opinion.

"She's got some severe issues with anyone who helps people," he said in a sleepy voice. "She didn't hesitate to stab me for saying the word wrong. She'll kill them for it. And whoever you exchanged for me is on me. And Alicia… It's not the same to you, Troy, I know that. But Alicia's different."

Nick made an effort to open his eyes and look at him.

"If something like that happens again, I need you to swear to me you won't make her lose her soul for my sake again. I need you to promise… me…"

He didn't catch the moment when his eyes roll closed, but then Troy's attentive face disappeared in the dark.