THE LIGHT MAKES ME SQUINT (where is it coming from—behind me?), and for an instant I’m disoriented, unsure of why I’m sleeping in an abandoned building facing the ocean with sea daisies growing at my feet. A sharp pain in my stomach forces a gasp out of me. I’ve been stabbed, I realize in a panic. And then I remember the Skiz fight and the knife and the boy who saved me. Tess hurries over when she sees me stir. “How are you feeling?” She still looks wary of me. “Sore,” I mutter. I don’t want her to think that she wrapped my wound badly, so I add, “Much better than yesterday, though.” It takes me a minute to realize that the boy who had saved me is sitting in the corner of the room, dangling his legs over the balcony and looking out toward the water. I have to hide my embarrassment. On a normal day, with no knife wound, I never would’ve let a detail like that go unnoticed. He went somewhere last night. When I was slipping in and out of sleep, I’d made a mental note of the direction he took (south, toward Union Station).
