Alien in the Family

to take the call. Gower reached out and pulled me to him. I buried my face in his chest and just let the tears come.
    “Leave us alone . . . please,” Gower said quietly. I heard footsteps fade away and could tell the others had given us some space. Gower’s body twitched. “Kitty, ACE is afraid.”
    “Me too, ACE.”
    “James is going to die.”

CHAPTER 20

    I COULDN’T CRY MORE THAN I WAS. I couldn’t stop, either. “It’s not fair.”
    “No, it is not.”
    “Why doesn’t God ever come help us?” I didn’t mean to say it out loud. ACE and I had had this conversation before, after all. I knew why—God wanted us to do it on our own. “Why can’t he come and save James? Just this once, actually save the good person who doesn’t deserve to die?”
    “Why does Tito feel responsible?”
    “What?” This seemed out of left field.
    “Tito is in there with James. Tito feels if James dies it will be Tito’s fault. Why? Tito did not harm James, Tito is not the one who caused the injuries.”
    “Oh. Tito’s learning to be a doctor. He helped me find James. He tried to take care of him.”
    “Why would that make Tito responsible?”
    “Doctors and nurses, paramedics, all the people who are trained to save lives—they sort of have to act like God, in that sense. They have to be good enough to save someone’s life, to steal a life back from death, from God, if you will. That’s a lot of pressure and responsibility. I think Tito feels responsible because, well, that’s how most people who try to save someone feel—if they could have done one thing differently or better or faster, then they would have saved the person.” Like me. If I hadn’t wanted to go shopping, if I hadn’t asked Reader to go with me, then he’d be okay.
    “It is not Kitty’s fault, either. Kitty is blaming Kitty. Paul is blaming Paul. The same with Jeff. Everyone feels responsible. Everyone but the one who hurt James. She feels happy.” ACE sounded madder than I’d ever heard him.
    “I’m going to kill her, ACE. In cold blood. I just want you to know that, so it won’t be a shock to you when I do it.”
    “No, Kitty. Kitty must not become what she is.”
    “He’s my best friend. I love him. He’s the only person I can talk to sometimes who understands—me, this, everything we do. There’s no justice on Earth that can make her suffer like Paul will suffer, like I’ll suffer, if we lose James. And I’ll be happily damned if that means she can’t hurt someone else I love.”
    “Why didn’t Kitty ask God to save Kitty before?”
    “You mean when Reid was about to run me down in the desert with an Escalade and I was sure I was going to die?”
    “Yes.”
    “Because I knew God wouldn’t help me.”
    “Kitty did not ask ACE for help. Kitty asked ACE to join Kitty with ACE, but not to save Kitty. Why?”
    “I didn’t want to put you into a position where you’d have to say no.”
    “James asked ACE to save Kitty then.”
    I could cry harder. What a nice way to find out. “But you didn’t.” My brain kicked. He had—ACE had told Martini what to do in order to save me. “ACE, please, please, do something to save James, to bring him back the way he was.”
    “ACE cannot do that, Kitty.” But the way he said it, I had a little bit of hope. Gower twitched and tightened his hold on me. “We’re going to lose Jamie, aren’t we?”
    “I . . . don’t know.”
    I heard a ruckus from the medical bay. Gower and I detached and took a look. There was a lot of running around, and someone was trying to hold Tito away from Reader. “Jeff! Help!”
    Martini was right there. “What’s wrong?”
    “Tell them to let Tito do whatever he wants.” I ran into the room. “Leave him alone, let him get to James!”
    The woman in charge turned to me. “He wants to do something that’s likely to kill the patient.”
    “The patient’s dead if I don’t,” Tito said urgently. He looked at me. “I know what I’m supposed to do.”
    “Jeff . . . please .”
    Martini took my hand. “Let him do what he wants.” It was an order.
    The women backed away, unwillingly, but they did it. Tito started doing something that I couldn’t watch. I turned my face into Martini’s chest and I prayed. A lot. I heard Tito asking for things, giving orders, just generally sounding like a brain surgeon, at least from what I could figure out. I couldn’t pay attention—I could only think about Reader being okay.
    It took forever;