Page 213 of Everything Under the Sun

But now I was fully awake, and nothing was happening in frames anymore, and although every part of me hurt like hell, I was glad to have control of my mind again at least.

I looked down where a bruise had spread out like spilled paint across my midsection.

“Must be broken,” I heard Thais say.

I looked up at her.

“Same side as before, isn’t it?” she asked. “When you were attacked in Lexington.”

I nodded.

“Yeah. But dis time dey’re fractured for sure.”

“How do you know it’s more than one?”

I thought on it. “Well, I don’t, really.”

Then I noticed the black tape stuck to my left arm, right thigh, and right hip, securing three rectangular pieces of something white that looked like paper towels but were not.

“Dried up baby wipes,” Thais explained.

I looked up.

“Unused?”

Thais smirked, and then it turned into a smile. “Yes, Atticus, unused.”

I smiled lightly on the side of my mouth that could still show it.

Thais pointed to the table beside me.

“I collected rainwater to clean your wounds,” she began. “Couldn’t find anything to pass for antiseptic, and nothing to stitch them up with, but I suppose the penicillin makes up for that.”

“Can’t ‘ave it all,” I said.

“No. Can’t have it all,” Thais agreed.

She looked down at the floor then, and I couldn’t help but notice that something was bothering her.

“Thais, vat’s vrong?” I reached out the hand with the broken fingers and I touched her wrist.

Thais knelt before me, her knees pressed against the dirty floor, and she touched her forehead to my knee.

“Thais, vat is it? Tell me.” I stroked her hair, and then fitted my hand underneath her chin to lift her head, not caring about the pain it caused my splinted fingers.

Suddenly, I felt my heart ram upward into my throat, like being punched there, and without even knowing if my assumptions were true, I was ready to fly out of the chair, go back to Paducah and kill whoever had harmed her.

“No, Atticus,” Thais urged, putting a hand on my waist and forcing me to stay seated. “Please, don’t get up.”

“Vat did vey do to you?” My unbroken fingers clutched the arm of the chair.

“I wasn’t harmed,” she assured me. “And I had help. But no one hurt me.” She sighed and looked at the floor again. “That’s not what’s wrong with me.”

“Ven…vhat is it? Tell me.”

When she raised her face to mine, tears trailed down her cheeks; I reached out and wiped them away with the pad of my thumb.

“I was just so scared,” she said. “I thought they were going to kill you. And then when I saw you—when I look at you now—Atticus…” She stopped to steady her breath, and then hit fast-forward. “Atticus, what are we going to do? How long has it been since we escaped Lexington City? A month? Maybe two? It has to be at least that long, and we’ve only gotten this far—I don’t even know where we are. A day from Paducah. That’s all I know.” Her voice rose, and her desperation deepened.

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