The immortality healed a lot within the first couple months it spent in Nileâs body. Scars faded off her skin, she stopped getting acne on her back from sweat, her hair even seems more lustrous. She enjoys that, of course, but the one thing that stayed is the one thing she wishes her new immortality would have eradicated. Maybe it simply cannot change whateverâs wrong with her brain.
Andyâs soothing touch guides her face away from the beds and back to her. Her eyes remind Nile of the ocean, in their depth and complexity, the way the light catches the ridges of her iris, much different than that thing she dissected in middle school. She thinks sheâs a little hysterical right now. After all, her lungs are full of silken spiderwebs, drawing in tighter and stickier while she tries to make sense of it all.Â
âThereâs nothing here,â Andy says gently. Her voice is only ever so genuinely soft when it has to be. âYou think any of us would let that happen? If we see a single bug, you know that Nicky kills it because they scare the daylights out of Joe. So thereâs probably not a million bugs hiding in your mattress.â
Instead of patronizing her, like others often did, Andy smiles at Nile and strokes her thumb over the curve of her cheek. âWould it help if I check?â
She nods, and the two of them return to NIleâs bed, the sheets not yet on it because she didnât get that far before the thoughts got to her, as irrational and disruptive as they always are. Andy cuts open the mattress along its seam and shines a battery-operated flashlight into it. Just springs and foam. There arenât even any leftover spiders crawling around, because Joe makes a point of bug-spraying their beds hours before they lay down.Â
Nile nods, but the second that Andy smooths the torn edge back down, sheâs filled with the fear all over again. Something is in her bed, something alive, and as soon as she relaxes, itâs going to take her. She will die a final death in its heavy embrace, sucked into the mattress and left there like that one season of American Horror Story. Her face must show her hesitation, because Andy nods to herself and leads Nile out to a cot in the corner of the main room, one usually reserved for keeping watch, and pulls a chair up next to it.Â
âNo mattress, no bugs, and Iâll be right here to keep you safe. Get some rest, kid.â
The easy understanding and kindness nearly kills her. But she keeps her cool and gets into the hammock, taking a moment to balance out before truly relaxing, and listens to the room in hopes of keeping track. Joe and Nicky murmur in the other room, Andy breathes slow and even as she watches something mindless on the TV, and the pages of Bookerâs latest read make a soft little swishing sound when he turns them.Â
She sits up so fast her head spins.Â
Booker has been exiled. He isnât here to read or turn pages. She looks around for the source of it, finds nothing, and squeezes her eyes shut to listen for it again. She doesnât hear it. Upon noticing her distress, Andy simply offers a hand, and doesnât say a word when Nile holds it a little too tightly as she settles back into a comfortable position, hoping for sleep.Â