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“Yup, only the table, he’s telling me.” Gus put his arm out to the side. “I tried to sell him on one of the sculptures, but it’s a no-go.”
As she fit herself against him and looked up, he pulled her in for a kiss. Ten days after Daniel was stung, while the dust was still settling after the attack, Cathy had been stung. It had been ludicrous. No clinical controls other than him shitting bricks and being ready with all kinds of crash-cart/epinephrine support.
Oh, wait. He’d swabbed her forearm with alcohol.
He’d never forget her lying in that hospital bed, eyes locked on his, a peaceful expression on her face. She’d been rock solid. He’d been a mess as he’d held her hand while that man with the red robes had placed the scorpion on her skin. Right before the strike, two things had gone through Gus’s mind: One, that the foreigner with the accent and the calm surety was all that made him hang on to his emotions—and in this, he was seeing himself through the eyes of his patients: He’d been that guidepost for others so many times.
Now a stranger he didn’t understand was it for him.
The second thing he’d thought of was that thiswas how modern medicine had started, people using what was available in the environment to help themselves survive. The vetting had not been in a laboratory. It had been out in nature, the trial and error coming at a high cost when the dice roll went against you.
“Where have you gone, Gus?”
The soft words were punctuated with a stroke on his cheek, and he came back into his body. He’d been prone to fits of drift for the last month, his brain vacillating between trying to catalog what reality now looked like and flying off into all kinds of molecular chemistry. But again, he was going to figure out why the venom worked, and then he was going to synthesize it in the lab, and then he was…
“Hi,” Cathy said as she waved her hand in front of his face. “You’re still gone.”
Yes, he was. But one guaranteed anchor? Looking at her. She was like Daniel, refreshed with health, her cheeks flushed with good circulation, her lips a natural pink, her eyes also lively, and paling out like Daniel’s. Courtesy of not leaving the compound, her short blond hair was growing out, the roots showing dark, and she was trying to decide whether she was going to keep the light color or not—and wasn’t that a nice preoccupation. As she’d said, if all you had on your mind was what was growing out of your head? Life was—
“Life is so good,” he murmured. “I get lost.”
Cathy looked at Daniel and the pair of them shared the stare of survivors. Although her physical status hadn’t been anywhere near as declined as his, she had been braced for a long road into her grave—and the knowledge of that approaching descent had been a stressor that had aged and depleted her. With them both freed of that burden? Not just health had returned.
“Anyway,” Daniel said. “Just this table, and thanks.”
Gus pushed up the sleeves of his Army greenM*A*S*Hsweatshirt. “I’ll help you get it into the car.”
They each took one end, and Gus did the backing out. As they crossed the foyer, Cathy ran forward and intercepted a pair of movers, pointing them to the back of the house so they didn’t forget something. Then she fell in step again.
Outside, December’s icy night was a slap in the face, but the snow-covered landscape was an apology for the sting. The pristine drifts were like the abstract marble sculptures the movers were packing into the black-on-black eighteen-wheeler. No commercial company for Cathy. Even after all this time, Gus had no idea how she pulled so many dark-market things out of thin air, but she seemed to have access to some kind of billionaire’s Craigslist where everything was super discreet, no questions were asked, and service didn’t come with any smiles.
As Gus humped the table out, there was no har-har, we’re-in-this-with-you-boys to the professionals. Hard to compare a four-legged with a little top to a polished frickin’ bolder, but there was a sense of satisfaction as he and Daniel stuffed the freebie into the back of the Suburban.
As Daniel hit the button and the rear door automatically closed, the man jacked up his jeans. “So we’ll see you up on the mountain?”
Gus checked his watch. “Yup. Gettin’ close. You ready?”
“More than ever before in my life.”
“Amen, brother.” The two clapped palms and jerked in for a clutch. “And then we’ll meet in Houston.”
Daniel passed a palm over his short hair. “New Year’s Eve.”
“The four of us.”
“We’re looking forward to it. New phase.”
Cathy came forward and the two murmured to each other. They were in a special club, one that didn’t necessarily exclude anybody else, but that had an inner circle of understanding that no one but survivors shared. Gus was glad for them. Miracles were great and all, but they didn’t gotabula rasaon shit. The past stalked each one of them, a panther in the shadows thrown by the bright light of hope and health and excitement for the future.
Over time, maybe things would feel more solid. In the present, the slope they’d all ascended sure as hell felt slippery and gravity seemed very greedy.
But sure as shit, they were grateful to be at the summit.
Daniel opened the driver’s side door, gave them both a final wave, and got behind the wheel. After a flare of red taillights, the engine came to life, and the Suburban skirted the moving semitruck and trundled down the allée.
“Come on,” Cathy said as she slipped an arm around him. “We have a wedding to get dressed for.”
He looked down at his woman. “You’re really going to let me wear my Converse All Stars?”
