Lev suppresses a heavy sigh. Here it comes.
"Yeah-you"re that guy-the clapper! Wow, I"m selling cookies to the clapper kid!"
"I didn"t clap," Lev tells her flatly, and mercifully finds a twenty in his wallet and hands it to her. "Here. Thanks for the cookies. Keep the change."
But she doesn"t take the money. Instead she puts her hands on her hips, continuing to look him over. "A clapper who doesn"t clap. Kind of defeats the purpose, don"t you think?"
"You should go now." He waves the money at her, but she still won"t take it.
"Keep your money. The cookies are my gift to you."
"No. Just take the money and go."
Her eyes are locked on his now. "A clapper who doesn"t clap. I imagine that would really tick off people in high places. People who put their time and money into making sure every clapper mission goes off without a hitch."
Lev suddenly gets a feeling in the pit of his stomach that goes straight down to China.
"They"re very proactive, these organizers, and a clapper who doesn"t complete his mission gives all of us a bad name."
Then she smiles and holds out her hands wide.
"Marcus! Dan!" yells Lev. "Get down!"
"Here"s another gift," says the girl. "Let me unwrap it for you." And she swings her hands together.
Lev leaps over the sofa for cover as her hands connect. All it takes is a single clap. The explosion blows Lev back against the wall, and the sofa flips on top of him, pinning him there. Shattering gla.s.s, crumbling timbers-and a shooting pain in his ears so bad he"s convinced his skull has split open. Then, in a few moments, the sounds of the explosion fades, leaving behind an intense ringing in his ears, and a clear sense that the world has just ended.
Smoke begins to burn his lungs and make his eyes tear. He forces the sofa off himself, and as he looks across the room, he sees his bed, which was upstairs just a few moments ago, now lying in the living room like a shipwreck. There is no upstairs now-and there is no roof beyond that, only the cloud-filled sky, while all around him flames eagerly fight to consume the wreckage.
Dan, who was on his way out into the living room when the girl clapped, was blasted backward against the wall. A huge bloodstain in the rough shape of his body marks his impact, and now he lies a lifeless heap on the floor. Pastor Dan-the man who told Lev to run on his t.i.thing day, the first one to visit him once he was in police custody, the man who had become more of a father to him than his own father-is dead.
"No!!"
Lev crawls over the ruins toward Dan"s body, but then sees his brother in the kitchen. A beam has fallen in the middle of the room, shattering the gla.s.s breakfast table and embedding itself in his brother"s gut. There"s blood everywhere-but Marcus is still alive. He"s conscious, and he shudders as he tries to speak, choking on blood.
Lev doesn"t know what to do, but he knows if he doesn"t clear his head enough to act, his brother will die too.
"It"s okay, Marcus, it"s okay," he says, even though it"s not.
With all his strength, Lev lifts the beam. Marcus screams in pain, and Lev, holding the beam up with his shoulder, pushes Marcus out of the way, then lets the beam go. The whole rest of the beam comes down, taking out what little was left of the table with a loud crash. Lev reaches into Marcus"s pocket, pulls out a blood-soaked phone and, praying it still works, dials 911.
Lev, covered in soot and ears still ringing, refuses his own ambulance. He insists on riding with Marcus and makes such a stink that they let him.
His left ear flutters with every sound, like a moth has found its way inside. His vision is blurry, and time itself seems to have altered. It"s like Lev and Marcus have been thrust into an alternate dimension where cause and effect are all confused. Lev can"t figure out if he"s here because the girl blew up, or if the girl blew up because he"s here.
The paramedics work on Marcus as they speed to the hospital, injecting him with G.o.d knows what.
"L-L-Lev," Marcus says, his eyes struggling to stay open.
Lev grabs his hand, sticky and brown from drying blood. "I"m here."
"Keep him awake," the paramedic tells him. "We don"t want him to go into shock."
"L-listen to me," Marcus says, fighting to get the words out. "Listen to me."
"I"m listening."
"They"ll want to . . . to give me stuff. Unwind stuff."
Lev grimaces to prepare himself. He knows what Marcus will say. Marcus would rather die than get parts from Unwinds.
"They"re gonna . . . they"re gonna wanna give me kidneys . . . a liver . . . whatever . . . parts from Unwinds . . ."
"I know, Marcus, I know."
Then he opens his half-shut eyes wider, locks his gaze on Lev, and grips Lev"s hand more tightly.
"Let them!" he says.
"What?"
"Let them do it, Lev. I don"t wanna die. Please, Lev," Marcus begs. "Let them give me unwound parts. . . ."
Lev squeezes his brother"s hand. "Okay, Marcus. Okay." And he cries, thankful that his brother didn"t just condemn himself to death, and hating himself for feeling that way.
Lev is examined thoroughly and told that he has a broken eardrum, various lacerations and contusions, and possibly a concussion. They bandage his wounds, which are minor, put him on antibiotics, and hold him for observation. He hears no word of Marcus, who was rushed into an operating room the moment they arrived. Aside from the nurse taking his pulse and blood pressure every hour, there"s no one to visit Lev but the police, who have questions, questions, and more questions.
"Did you know the girl who perpetrated this attack?"
"No."
"Did you recognize her from your clapper training?"
"No."
"Was she a part of your clapper cell?"
"I told you I didn"t know her!"
And of course, the stupidest question of all: "Do you know any reason why they would target you?"
"Isn"t it obvious? She told me it was retribution for not clapping-that the people in charge weren"t happy."
"And who are the people in charge?"
"I don"t know. The only ones I ever knew were a bunch of other kids who are dead now because they all blew up, okay? I never met anyone in charge!"
Satisfied, but not really, the police leave. Then the FBI shows up and asks him the same questions the police did-and still no one will tell him anything about Marcus.
Finally, later in the afternoon, during one of her routine checks, his attending nurse takes pity on him.
"I was told not to speak to you about your brother, but I"m going to anyway." Then she sits in a chair close to him, keeping her voice down. "He had a lot of internal damage. But luckily, we happen to have one of the best-equipped organ lockers in the state. He received a new pancreas, liver and spleen, and a sizeable segment of small intestine. He had a punctured lung, and rather than letting it heal, your parents opted to replace that, too."
"My parents? They"re here?"
"Yes," the nurse said. "They"re in the waiting room. Would you like me to get them?"
"Do they know I"m here?" Lev asks.
"Yes."
"Did they ask to see me?"
She hesitates. "I"m sorry, hon, they didn"t."
Lev looks away, but there"s nothing to look at. The TV in his hospital room has been disconnected, because there"s so much coverage of the explosion. "Then I don"t want to see them."
The nurse pats his hand and offers him an apologetic smile. "Sorry there"s so much bad blood there, hon. I"m sorry all this had to happen to you."
He wonders if she knows the whole of it, and figures that she does. "I should have realized they"d come after me eventually. The clappers, I mean."
The nurse sighs. "Once you get wound in with bad people, the unwinding never ends." Then she catches herself. "I"m sorry-that was a very unfortunate choice of words, wasn"t it? I should just sew my lips shut right now."
Lev forces a smile. "It"s okay. Once you"ve almost blown up twice, you"re not so sensitive about word choices."
She smiles at that.
"So what happens now?"
"Well, I understand your brother is your legal guardian. Is there anyone else who might come forward to help you? Somewhere else you can go?"
Lev shakes his head. Pastor Dan was the only other person he could count on. He can"t even think of Dan now. It simply hurts too much. "I was under house arrest. I can"t go anywhere without permission from the Juvenile Authority, even if there was someone to go with."
The nurse stands up. "Well, that"s way out of my department, hon. Why don"t you just relax for now? I know they want to keep you overnight-it can all be sorted out in the morning."
"Could you maybe tell me what room my brother"s in?"
"He"s still in recovery," she tells him, "but as soon as they a.s.sign him a room, I promise you"ll be the first to know." She leaves, and in comes a detective, with more ways to ask the same questions.
True to her word, the nurse tells him that Marcus is in room 408, and so after dark, when all the questioning is over and the halls have quieted, Lev ventures out of his room, ignoring the aches that fill most of his body. Just outside his door, he sees that the cop a.s.signed to guard him is down the hall, flirting with one of the younger nurses. Lev quietly slips away to visit Marcus.
As he pushes open the door to room 408, the first thing he sees is his mother sitting in a chair, her eyes fixed on Marcus, who is unconscious and intubated, and connected to a hissing breathing machine. His father is there too, his hair looking a little grayer than it did a year ago. Lev feels tears threatening to rise, but he wills them away, sucking his emotions in and locking them tight.
His mother sees him first. She reaches over to get his father"s attention. They look at each other for a moment, sharing whatever pseudo-telepathy married couples have. Then his mother stands, crosses to Lev, and never once looking at him, hugs him awkwardly, then leaves the room.
His father doesn"t look at him either. Not at first anyway. He just looks to Marcus, watching his chest rise and fall in a slow, steady, machine-regulated rhythm.
"How is he?" Lev asks.
"He"s in an induced coma. They said they"ll keep him like this for three days, so the nanos can speed the healing."
Lev has heard that the pain of nano-healing is unbearable. It"s best that Marcus sleeps through it. Lev is certain that his parents gave Marcus all t.i.thed organs. The most expensive. He knows this, but he won"t ask.
Finally his father looks at him. "Are you satisfied now? Are you happy with the results of your actions?"
Lev has imagined this conversation between him and his father a hundred times. In each of those mental confrontations, Lev has always been the one making accusations, not the other way around. How dare he? How dare he? Lev wants to lash out, but he refuses to take the bait. He says nothing.
"Do you have any idea what you"ve put this family through?" his father says. "The shame? The ridicule?"
Lev can"t maintain his silence. "Then maybe you shouldn"t surround yourself with people as judgmental as you."
His father looks to Marcus again. "Your brother will come home with us," he decrees. And since any guts that Marcus now has have been paid for by their father"s money, he won"t have much of a choice.
"And me?"
Again, his father won"t look at him. "My son was t.i.thed a year ago," he says. "That"s the son I choose to remember. As for you, you can do as you please. It"s not my concern." And he says no more.
"When Marcus wakes up, tell him I forgive him," Lev says.
"Forgive him for what?"
"He"ll know."
And Lev leaves without saying good-bye.
Farther down the hallway, he spots his mother again, and other members of his family, in the fourth-floor waiting room. A brother, two sisters, and their husbands. In the end, they came for Marcus. None of them are there for him. He hesitates, wondering if he should go in there. Will they behave like his father, bitter, rigid, and cold-or like his mother, offering a pained hug, yet refusing to look at him?
Then, in that moment of indecision, he sees one of his sisters bend down and pick up a baby. It"s a new nephew Lev never even knew he had.
And the baby is dressed all in white.
Lev races back to his room, but even before he gets there, he feels the eruption begin. It starts deep in his gut, sobs rising with such unexpected fury, his abdomen locks in a cramp. He must struggle the last few feet to his room doubled over, barely able to catch his breath as the tears burst from his eyes.
Somewhere deep, deep down in the most irrational corner of Lev"s mind-perhaps the place where childhood dreams go-he held out a secret hope that he might actually be taken back. That he might one day be welcomed home. Marcus had told him to forget about it-that it would never happen, but nothing could wipe out that stubborn hope that hid within him. Until today.
He climbs into his hospital bed and forces his face into his pillow as the sobs crescendo into wails. A full year"s worth of suppressed heartache pours forth from his soul like Niagara, and he doesn"t care if he drowns in the killing whiteness of its churning waters.
Lev wakes without ever remembering having slept. He knows he must have, because there"s morning light streaming into the room.
"Good morning, Lev."