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Luca made him lie back down. “I’m going to stay with you for a while.” He petted Dr. Dante’s head. “Maybe it will help keep the nightmares away.”
Dr. Dante relaxed. “I’m used to them. Have been for a while. Normally I don’t feel this tired but….”
He didn’t have to say the rest. Today had changed Luca, and it had obviously changed Dr. Dante too.
“I used to dream about what would happen to the betas and Koda because I left the Anubis project. Now I dream about what happened because I did.” Dr. Dante tucked his head in, putting himself farther under the blankets as well as touching his forehead to Luca’s thigh. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Don’t say that.” Dr. Dante’s voice cracked. “I’m as guilty as Dr. Echols.”
“You’re not.”
Reese tensed.
“You’re not because you left.”
“I ran away. There’s a difference.”
“And if you hadn’t?”
Dr. Dante would have been dead with the other scientists and there would have been no one to tell Nox how to save Luca.
Then Nox would have been alone, dead, or lost to the Anubis while it rampaged.
Luca told Reese all those things, leaving them both in silence long enough for the moon to slide past the window.
“Luca?” Dr. Dante’s voice was small.
“Yeah?”
“What was Koda like? Really like?”
“He never told you anything?”
“I didn’t ask. I was too scared too. If you don’t want to tell me, I understand.”
Luca continued to thread his fingers through Dr. Dante’s hair. “Koda was my best friend.” He’d taught Luca to ride a horse, fish, and build a computer. “When I got sick, he was always there.” To read to him, to tell him jokes, or just to hold his hand when it hurt too much. “When my parents gave up, he never did.”
No. Koda never gave up, even when Luca wanted to. He would lie with him for hours in his hospital bed, hold him with the promise of never letting go, whisper to him all the wonderful things they would do when Luca got better.
“He always knew what I wanted for Christmas even if I didn’t tell him. He told terrible knock-knock jokes. I’m talking about the worst. Corny and dumb. He hated mustard on his hotdogs, loved snakes and lizards. Mom didn’t. We found out just how much when a garter snake we’d caught got loose in the house and she found it.” She hadn’t just climbed a chair. “We found her standing in the kitchen sink, screaming.”
Reese laughed. “Sorry, that’s not really funny.”
“Yes, it is.”
Reese sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Koda’s favorite color was blue, but he changed his mind all the time about what shade. He liked to race remote control cars. Named our first horse Butter Spot.”
“Why Butter Spot?”
“No idea, it was Appaloosa.”
“Don’t those have spots?”
“Yeah, but it was a blue Appaloosa, nothing buttery about it.”
