فصل 34

CHAPTER 34

Mark and Alec sat in silence for a long time, listening to the wheezes and hitched breathing of Anton as he slept.

“I’m not sure we can trust much of what came out of this guy’s mouth,” Alec said after a while. “But I’m troubled, to say the least.” “Yeah,” Mark responded flatly. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so tired. But they had to get up, get out of that room, find Trina and the others.

He didn’t move.

“Boy, you look like a zombie,” Alec said after twisting to face him. “And I feel like one.” “Yeah,” Mark said again.

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but there’ll be no argument.” Mark raised his eyebrows. Even that seemed to take all the energy he had. “And what’s that?” “We need to sleep.”

“But … Trina … Lana …” He suddenly couldn’t remember the little girl’s name. Impossible. His head ached like a storm had erupted inside his skull.

Alec stood up. “We’re not going to do our friends a bit of good if we can’t function because we’re too tired. We’ll just catch a few winks. Maybe an hour each while the other keeps an eye out. Anton said his coworkers would be in some meeting for hours.” He got up from the bed and walked quickly over to the door to the room, closed it, locked it. “Just to be safe.” Mark slumped to his side, then slowly drew his legs up onto the cot. He folded his arms under his head. He wanted to protest but nothing came out.

Alec started talking again. “I’ll take first watch, so …”

But Mark fell asleep before he heard any more.

The dreams came. The memories. More vivid than ever before. As if the depth of his exhaustion had created the perfect canvas for them.