The air conditioner churned noisily behind the walls, and a vent above his bed kept a steady chill blowing down on him. He shivered, drawing himself up into a ball. He tried to remember what it was like that morning in his sophomore year when he left that senior from Gatlin at the edge of the pinewoods and broke loose into the daylight of the homestretch, running like he’d never run before in his life. He thought about all that soft, gold daylight pouring down over him, filling his senses with the smell of pine. But try as he might, he couldn’t hold the good thoughts. His body hurt. The wound on his left shoulder was throbbing constantly. The fingers of his left hand had a tendency to fall asleep if he didn’t keep them moving. The insides of his elbows were bruised up from all the injections they’d given him. And they had operated on him, too. That was what was hurting, he decided, not the bite. It was bandaged up now, but he had seen it the night before while one of the nurses was dressing it, and from what he could see, the original bite looked pretty well healed.
