Page 119 of Breaking the Dark

Elliot and Sebastian feel them for pulses, for heartbeats, for breath. Nobody in the apartment makes a sound. And then Elliot turns to the camera, his eyes bright, his face flushed with shock and awe, and he says, “Yes. They’re alive. Yes.”

FORTY-FIVE

DOZENS OF COPS arrive at the Airbnb just after eight o’clock. There are four cars on the street outside, and two more pulling up at the building. One FBI agent interviews Jessica and Luke while the others box up evidence. Fox, Lark, and Arthur have been taken in for questioning. More officers are on their way to Amber Randall’s apartment. Malcolm is on his way home.

It’s nearly eleven by the time she and Luke are free to go, and Jessica feels raw and filthy.

As if reading her thoughts, Luke touches her hand and says, “Wanna stay at mine?”

Jessica thinks of his clean bed linen and fridge full of good things, the fat towels that hang in neat lines from a warm rail. “Yeah,” she says. “Please. But not—”

“Yeah,” says Luke. “I know.”

It’s nearly midnight by the time they get back to his apartment. Jessica’s body clock screams at her that it is five in the morning and that she should be thinking about breakfast, but she overrides the circadian confusion and takes a long, hot shower, puts on Luke’s T-shirt, and uses the brand-new toothbrush he offers her.

In bed she pulls the covers up high, nestles her head against the fat, crisp pillows, and turns on her phone.

“Turn that off,” Luke says gently.

“Yeah, but I want to see what’s happening in England. It’s morning there, there’ll be new headlines.”

“The headlines will still be there tomorrow. It’s out of your hands now. Other people are doing their jobs. Tomorrow, I’ll take you out for breakfast and you can spend the whole time looking at your phone, but now you need to sleep.”

“I’m too wired to sleep.”

“You want some rainstorm sounds?”

“Excuse me?”

He picks up his own phone from his nightstand. “You can have rainstorms, fans, nature sounds, waterfall? Or maybe some plinky-plonky music? What do you think?”

Jessica places her phone on the nightstand. “Hit me with some nature.”

She closes her eyes and pushes the soles of her feet against the warm flesh of Luke’s calves. She should tell him now about the baby, she thinks, right now, while they are both encased in this bond of shared experience, of exhaustion, of partnership. But she cannot find the words and she cannot find the strength and her head is filled with too much black noise right now. So instead, she lets the white noise into her consciousness, lets it swish through her head and chase away the shadows.

Five minutes later she is asleep.

FORTY-SIX

THE DOCTOR LOOMS over Jessica with a small magnifying glass and a light.

“If I could just ask you to stare straight into the center of the light, please, Jessica.”

She follows the doctor’s instructions, and then a moment later the doctor turns off the light and sits back in her chair. “Well,” she says, “any laser-induced retinal injury usually takes a long time to heal, but yours is five days old and what is very interesting is that it appears to have healed almost entirely.”

“Ah, right, yes,” says Jessica. “I have an, er…well, my body heals quicker than most people’s bodies. I’m…you know. I have…certain powers.”

“Oh,” says the doctor, her eyes widening. “Right. I see. By what sort of time factor would you say? Roughly?”

“I dunno. I’ve never calculated it. But what is it?” asks Jessica. “What is the injury?”

“Like I say, it’s a kind of laser burn.”

“But does it penetrate any deeper than the cornea? I mean, is there anything else in me?”

“Not that I can see.”

“So there’s no lasting damage?”

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