CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Travis felt the first stab of pain
about an hour into their drive back toward Little Rock. It wasn’t
much, really; just a slight pinprick in his chest, deep down. He’d
felt twinges of it earlier, back when he was wrapping himself up in
that policeman’s pants, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t
speaking to either of his parents. He was too pissed off about
being stripped naked and nearly drowned. He’d saved their lives,
dammit, and that was the thanks he got! As it was, he felt
thoroughly humiliated. The pants might as well have been a dress,
they were so huge, and he didn’t even have a shirt. With the cop tied to the tree,
there was no way to get his off of him, and he’d refused his
father’s offer to give him his own shirt, just on principle. As for
the work of the day, Travis had retired. He didn’t even lift a
finger to help as his parents and Nick loaded stuff into the trunk
of the Cadillac. His resolve to stay sullen and disinterested
nearly broke when they built the bonfire to burn their protective
clothing and equipment—everything that might carry a
fingerprint—but in the end, he remained silent.
So he just sat there, pressed up
against the back door, sulking and feeling stupid. And pretending
not to feel the pain delivered by every breath. If his parents
hadn’t been asking him every five seconds how he felt, maybe he’d
have spoken up and told them something, but right now he didn’t
want to hear the lecture again about how stupid he was to go in
there and to save their sorry butts.
He’d be okay. He was sure of
it.
Ow!
That breath really hurt, and on both
sides, too, making him want to cough. But as he drew in his breath
to do just that, the pinpricks grew to razor blades, and the air
made a rumbling sound deep down inside of him. When he finally
coughed, it felt like it was in slow motion, as if something were
blocking the air from escaping.
He looked over to his mom, just as she
looked over to him from the other end of the backseat, and the look
that twisted her face scared him more than the pain in his chest
ever could.
“Travis!” she yelled. “Oh, my God,
Jake. Travis!”
Jake whirled around to look at him
from the front passenger seat and showed a look that terrified
Travis even more. He said, “Oh, no,” then scrambled over the seat
back to join them in the rear.
What is
it? Travis tried to ask. What’s wrong? But his voice wouldn’t work.
The pain in his chest was worse than ever, and his heart raced at
three times its normal rate. This time when he coughed, he could
imagine someone ripping a piece of super-sticky tape off the lining
of his lungs.
“Oh, my God! My baby!
Jake!”
There was blood in his mouth now. And
on his hands, too. Where did that come from? He needed to take a
breath, but when he tried, he coughed again, and then he bled some
more. He’d never seen his mother look so frightened. Or his
dad.
Travis felt like he should be afraid.
In fact, he remembered being afraid just a moment before. That
was today, wasn’t it? He
wanted to talk, but suddenly, he didn’t know how. And even if he
did, he couldn’t remember what it was that he wanted to say. He
needed air. He forced himself to draw in a huge breath, and the
pain came again, worse than ever, but, curiously, he didn’t care
much about it anymore.
His dad was in the backseat with him
now, and from the look on his face, he was shouting something, but
for the life of him, Travis couldn’t hear a word of it. He tried
for a second or two to watch his father’s lips, to figure out what
he was saying, but he became distracted by the way everything on
the periphery of his vision had begun to sparkle.
Once the colors drained from the
world, it was time to go to sleep.