“Will you bite me again?” he asked.
“Shall I?” I didn’t really want to, but of course I would.
“Yeah.”
“All right. When I awaken you, I will.”
“Listen,” he said when I turned to leave. “I didn’t mean to call you … what I called you. My sister, she married a Dominican guy. Her kids are darker than you, and they’re my blood, too. I would kick the crap out of anyone who called them what I called you.”
“You only answered my question,” I said. “But I need more answers. I need to know all that you can tell me.”
He froze. “Can’t,” he said. “I can’t. My head hurts.” He held it between his hands as though to press the pain out of it somehow.
“I know. Don’t worry about it right now. Just get some sleep.”
He nodded, eyelids drooping, and went off to bed. I felt like going off to bed myself, but I went back down to the kitchen where Celia and Brook were waiting for me. Wright and Joel had joined them. Wright spoke first.
“All eighteen attackers are accounted for,” he said. “No one got away.”
I nodded. That was one good thing. None of them would be running home to tell the Ina who had sent them that they had failed, although that would no doubt be obvious before long. And what would happen then? I sighed.
Joel seemed to respond to my thought. “So some Ina is sicking these guys on us,” he said. “When he sees it didn’t work this time, he’ll send more.”
“It seems that way,” I said wearily. I sat down. “I don’t know my own people well enough to understand this. I feel comfortable with the Gordons, but I don’t really know them. I don’t know how many Ina might be offended by the part of me that’s human.” I wanted to put my head down on the table and close my eyes.
“The Gordons will help you,” Joel said. “Preston and Hayden are decent old guys. They can be trusted.”
I nodded. “I know.” But of course I didn’t know. I hoped. “Tonight we’ll talk to the prisoners. Maybe we’ll all learn something.”
“Like which Ina have been trying to kill you,” Celia said.
I nodded. “Maybe. I don’t know whether we can find that out yet. It may be too soon. But Victor isn’t really injured, so we can begin questioning him tonight. The others, though, they might need time to recover, and they might know things that Victor doesn’t. Or we might just use them to verify what Victor says.”
“You’re sure you can make Victor tell you what he knows?” Wright asked.
“I can. So could the Gordons. It will hurt him, though, stress him a lot. It might kill him. I don’t believe any of this is his fault, so I don’t want to push him that far.”
“You remember that,” he asked, “that your questioning him could kill him?”
I nodded. “I saw his face when I asked him who I was, and he answered. It hurt him. In that moment, I knew I could kill him with a few words. But he’s only a tool—one of eighteen tools used today.”
“What makes you so sure he’s not a willing tool?” Celia asked.
“His manner,” I said. “He’s confused, sometimes afraid, but not really angry or hateful.” I shrugged. “I could be wrong about him. If I am, we’ll find out over the next few days.”
“You’re sure it’s all right to leave him alone upstairs?” Wright said.
“He’ll sleep until I wake him,” I said. “And when he wakes, I won’t be the only one wanting to question him.”
Seventeen
I went upstairs feeling tired and a little depressed. I didn’t know why I should feel that way. I was close to finding out who was threatening me, and I had taken a full meal from Victor, which should have restored my energy after all my running around in the sun and blistering my face until it hurt. Somehow, it hadn’t.
I had taken off my shoes and was lying down on the bed Wright and I usually shared when Brook looked in and said, “Come to my room and lie down with me for a little while.”
The moment she suggested it, it was all I wanted to do. I slid from the bed and went down the hall to her room.
I lay down beside her, and she turned me on one side and lay against me so that I could feel her all along my back.
“Better?” she asked against my neck. “Or is this hurting your face?”
I sighed. “Much better.” I pulled one of her arms around me. “My face is healing. Why do I feel better?”