I stare at him, confused.
“The director is aware that Matt was the one who called nine-one-one,” Mason continues. “That someone you went to school with in Omaha knows you died.”
“But Matt knows I’m alive,” I protest. “He knows about the program,” I acknowledge aloud.
“I know that, but the director doesn’t,” Mason says.
“You lied?”
“Of course I lied,” Mason says. “I was protecting you.”
“But Mason, Revive didn’t even bring me back,” I say. “I can go back to school and tell everyone that I was miraculously saved by normal modern medicine after a bee attack. Everyone will be so impressed.”
“That’s the director’s fear,” Mason says.
“What?”
“That this will draw attention to you,” he clarifies. “That if you go back and say you were saved from a bee attack, the news will report on you. People will look into your background. There’s potential for exposure.”
>Mason looks at me wearily; he can tell I’m not feeling well. “You need your rest,” he says.
“Tell me what happened,” I command.
“Okay, Daisy,” he says, patting my hand, but not hard enough to take away the itch. “Okay.” He pauses and leans closer to me so I can hear him despite his low tone. “Matt told Megan that he heard you say something about Cassie—”
“He heard that?” I interrupt, remembering lying on the concrete. Dying.
“Apparently so,” Mason says softly. “Anyway, Matt relayed that to Megan, who in turn got David involved. David tracked Cassie’s cell location and recent calls, which led him to God’s location. He sent teams after both and focused on you.”
“But Cassie cleaned out the Revive,” I say. “And no one was around to administer it.”
“David grounded my plane in the middle of a field and had a car waiting for me,” he says.
“I bet that was scary.”
Mason makes a so-so gesture with his hand. I pat, pat my cheek. “The civilians were frantic,” he says. “They thought it was terrorists. I got an in-flight message from David, though, so I knew what was happening. It’s a good thing, too; God had something planned for me when I landed in Washington.”
“How long did it take you to get to me?” I ask, shifting to a more comfortable position.
“Thankfully, the flight path took us east, so I was only about twenty miles away.”
“That’s too far out,” I say, shaking my head. Surprisingly, I can’t feel the stings this time. “You couldn’t have brought me back from that.” Suddenly I feel spacey, like I’m watching the scene from outside my body. I realize that nothing else is bothering me anymore, either. I move my head again to make sure.
“Did the nurse give me something?” I ask.
Mason nods. “We’ve been sedating you to keep you calm,” he says. “You were stung more than a hundred times.”
My head falls back to the pillow but I fight sleep; I need to know what happened. I shake my head more forcefully to clear the fog.
“How long was I dead?”
“Twelve minutes,” Mason says seriously.
“Wait, what?” I ask, my eyelids drooping. “But you said you were…”
“Shh,” Mason says. “Get some rest now. I’ll explain later.”
I refuse to close my eyes. “Explain now,” I demand, but it lacks conviction.