Wyatt wrestled Adam to the floor and finally snapped an old pair of handcuffs behind his son’s back. Adam wanted up off his stomach. His chest heaved. He breathed audibly through his mouth. Sweat ringed his shirt. Wyatt sat on him.
“I want to see it,” Adam said.
“I told you, no.”
“Let me fucking see it! Or I swear I’ll kill you and Mom!”
“You don’t mean that.”
Adam attempted to lift off the ground. Wyatt grabbed his ankle, yanked, and they both fell flat again.
“You’re suffocating me.”
“Stop fighting.”
Adam growled and strained to glimpse the stone on the bed. He couldn’t.
“Please, Dad, we should all take a closer look. You and Mom, too.”
“No.”
“I hate you! I hate you!”
“I love you. So does your mother.”
Adam calmed for a moment. Wyatt felt his son’s lungs filling and deflating. Filling slowly. Deflating. In through the mouth, out through the nose. When he spoke, the words were level. “I’m better now. Let me up, okay?”
“Not yet.”
Adam gritted his teeth. “I’m going to let them in, you prick.”
Wyatt didn’t ask who. He had the Glock 27 in his right hand. If Opal didn’t come back in sixty seconds, he would go. He’d take the stone, too. Lock Adam in the closet. It wouldn’t hold him for long. But he didn’t have many choices. He heard them struggling with somebody, or a gang of somebodies, in the utility room. Four gunshots. The most difficult thing was to sit here on his son’s back and wait.
He hoped the change in Adam was temporary. Passing delirium. A spell.
Adam banged his head into the floor.
With his left hand, Wyatt forced the boy’s head down. Pinned it there, giving him no room to hurt himself.
Adam cried.
“Please, please, please ...”
Footsteps in the hall. Lightweight, moving quickly. Wyatt couldn’t see around the corner from his spot next to the bed. The room was dark. A black and orange tree grew from the shadows on the ceiling. He fingered the trigger.
Waited.
Opal. In the doorway. Candle flame guttered in her hand. Behind her was Vera.
He took his finger off the trigger.
Icicles dripped in his guts.
“The stone .. . it’s doing something to Adam. Take it away.”
Opal grabbed the stone and left the bedroom.
“Anything I can do?” Vera asked.
“Who was out back?”
“My boyfriend Chan; he tried to get me to let him in and when I wouldn’t he broke the glass and grabbed me and started pulling my hair and . ..”
“Where’s he now?”
“Opal shot him.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, he’s dead.”
“Are you injured?”
Vera shook her head.
“You did the right thing. Opal did the right thing. You know that?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a hand. Let’s put him on the bed.”
Wyatt shifted off Adam’s back. Adam didn’t move. He appeared to be asleep.
“Maybe whatever happened to him ... maybe it was like a seizure. His brain misfired and now it’s shut down for a little while.” Vera knelt and brushed her fingers through Adam’s damp hair. Adam’s mouth was slack. All the tension in him had vanished. His eyelids fluttered. His eyes were moving under them like he was deep in a dream.
Wyatt set the Glock on the nightstand. He straddled Adam. He flipped him face up. Asleep. Snoring. The damnedest thing. Like a knockout dart.
Wyatt lifted Adam’s torso and Opal returned in time to help Vera with his legs. They left the handcuffs on him. Rolled him on his side.
Opal put an icepack on Adam’s neck.
She threw a blanket over him. Kissed his cheek. Shut his door, partway.
They went into the kitchen.
“Where’s the stone?” Wyatt asked.
Opal nodded at the oven.
“I’d like to broil the thing,” she said.
Vera went into the bathroom. They heard water running. She was blowing her nose. Sobbing, trying to do it quietly. Opal looked at Wyatt.
He put his arm around his wife.
“I killed Vera’s boyfriend,” Opal said.
“She told me.”
“I had to.”
“And you did. You okay with it?”
“No. But I will be.”
Wyatt hugged her close. “So let’s keep busy. You get the back door secured?”
She shook her head no. “Is Adam going to be better?”
“I think so. He did what Max said we shouldn’t. The rock ... it’s like it drugged him. I think it affects the brain. Vera said something about seizures—”
“We keep away from it. All of us,” she said. She let go of her husband. Took the coffeepot off the stovetop and poured three cups. “What if we give it to them?”
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t know. No, I guess not. They’re killing everyone outside, Wyatt. We’re sitting here on our hands. How’s that supposed to make me feel?”
“I know.”
“My sister’s out there. Ruby and her family. Our friends.”
“It’s not our fault.”
“We have to do something. How many bullets do we have?”
“Not enough.”