“Why?” I ask.
“Because it’s moderate, I suppose. Not too small or too big. Rarely in the news. Friendly. Reasonably gentrified. You know what that means, right?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“So, all in all, it should be a good cover. Assuming…”
“Assuming what?” I ask.
Mason checks the tables around us, then answers in a low tone. “Assuming nothing else happens.”
“I didn’t mean to do it, you know,” I say quietly.
“You never do,” Mason says, holding my gaze. “But you didn’t have your EpiPen, either.”
“I forgot it,” I say quickly.
It’s a lie.
In truth, I spent way too long deciding what to wear, leaving only five minutes to arrange my hair into something resembling a style. I left for school in a rush, remembering the EpiPen, which probably would have saved my life, halfway down the block. I wasn’t so late that I couldn’t have gone back, but for some reason I didn’t.
Having been trained to know when people are lying, Mason narrows his eyes at me. I assume Cassie’s doing the same, but I don’t look at her to find out. For a moment, I think Mason’s going to call me on it, but thankfully, he moves on.
“Daisy, I think you should know that we nearly couldn’t bring you back this time,” he says so quietly it’s almost like he’s breathing the words. His bluntness, I’m used to—Mason treats me like a partner, not a daughter—but I’m surprised by the idea of permanent death.
“Was it a bad vial?” I ask.
“No, it was fine,” Mason says. “It was… you.”
“He almost called time of death,” Cassie interjects. Stunned, I look at her, then back at Mason.
“Seriously?” I ask.
“It was very stressful,” Mason says. There’s a flicker of something like worry in his green eyes, and then it’s gone.
I think for a moment before coming to what I consider to be a pretty rational conclusion: “But it did work, so everything’s fine.”
“But it might not be next time,” he says. “I’m merely advising you to take precautions. Don’t you remember Chase?”
>“I know.”
“Water,” Cassie says, offering me a bottle without looking my way. I take it and gulp down half in two seconds, then look out the window to the unidentifiable landscape zooming by at seventy-five miles per hour.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“Illinois,” Mason says.
“ILLINOIS?!”
Cassie jumps a little but still doesn’t look back at me. I take a deep breath, which for some reason makes me yawn loudly. I rub the sleep from my eyes and in a more measured tone ask, “How long was I out?” Mason glances at Cassie and then checks the clock.
“I’d say you were probably out about eight hours,” Mason says as plainly as if he’s giving me a weather report.
“Eight hours? How is that possible?”
“They added a calming agent to it… to smooth the rough edges,” Mason says.
I nod, still feeling woozy.