There were things moving on the walls. Evan really couldn't sleep. He had too much on his mind. Plus, there was some really bright streetlight outside his hospital room, and its glare just poured in through the window. Even though the blinds were closed, they didn't do anything to block the white-blue light.

It was way too quiet in the hospital. He didn't like it. There was another bed in his room, but it was empty. A lot of people would've been happy to get a hospital room to themselves and have all that privacy, but Evan wished someone was there. He didn't really trust himself alone. He was too frustrated. Felt too lost. When he'd told the doctor and nurses to put him in a room with someone else—that he would rather not be alone—they had told him that he needed the quiet, should be happy for it. His headache would subside if he just rested. Because his head did hurt; he'd hit it really hard against the roof of the car, right above the side window, and even though the airbag had exploded out of his wheel, it'd only hit him hard enough to knock him out all the way. He didn't remember the ambulance coming or the ride to the hospital. He only remembered waking up in a bed, in this awfully bare, clean room . . . alone. He didn't even know what his car looked like. His parents had told him it was totaled and that he'd have to pay for the other car. They'd just barely asked him what had happened—why he'd had the accident—but he hadn't told them the entire truth. He'd said that in the rain, he'd tried to brake and lost control of the car. While that was the basic truth (minus the blood), he was angry when they didn't ask him more questions. Mad that they didn't know or care about knowing what had really happened. Even though there was no possible way for them to know about the blood, he was furious that they didn't. It was a ridiculous anger, but he felt it all the same.

Why did they always act like everything was ok? They knew Evan wasn't all right. Wasn't some perfect angel. And yet they continued to pretend like he was entirely fine. They'd come back from nights away to find half the liquor cabinet empty. They knew it was Evan who'd gotten with a friend and emptied it. But they never questioned him. He wanted to quit school after Zach disappeared. Did they ask why? Did they tell him it might be bad for him? No. When they found him entirely freaked out and not wanting to go up to his bedroom, when he slept on the couch for a few nights, they hadn't done more than ask if he was ok and then accept his "Yeah," even though they had to know that he clearly wasn't. And now, this car accident . . . It was like, they were too easy on him. They never got angry with him or really questioned the things he did. They accepted everything he said right away. Didn't they know that he wanted them to get angry? He wanted to hear no sometimes?

It was too much to think about. It all was just sitting on his brain like some over-stuffed landfill, full of garbage he couldn't seem to alleviate. He'd always felt estranged from his parents, but now, everything had just pressurized to a point where he knew he was going to lose control. He knew that he was holding his sanity and his life together only with one simple, fragile thread, and he was about to let go of it. He knew he was. It was only a matter of time.

A slim, slim hope had kept him together. But Ada was backing out. She wasn't going to help him. She was just going to psychoanalyze all of her problems away. And maybe he was wrong to be angry with her for that. Maybe it really did or would work for her—seeing that therapist. Being on meds. If it helped her, why was he trying to get her to stop? He was thinking about himself, that was why. He didn't want her to feel better. To forget. Not unless he could, too. Because it wouldn't be fair if he was the only one who got lost.

If they tried to find Zach—really tried—would they even find him? Evan had told Ada they would, but he didn't know if he believed himself. He'd told her that they had to look. They had to try. But why? Why should he convince her and himself that everything would be ok once they figured this mystery out? Because it might not be. Even if they found Zach (which was unlikely, considering they had no leads or ideas about where he could be), accepting whatever had happened might be harder than the not knowing. Whenever you heard on the news or read in the paper about missing kids or people, their family members always said that they just wanted to know what happened, even if the kid or person wasn't alive anymore. That it was the not knowing that killed them. But when they realized that the missing person was dead—had been raped or tortured and then strangled or suffocated or whatever—did they really feel better, knowing that their child or brother or sister or friend had gone through that? Wasn't ignorance better, sometimes? Because as long as you didn't know what happened to the missing, you could keep hope. You could make up happier, painless things that could've happened to them. Like, maybe they just ran away. Maybe they fell off a cliff and their life ended instantly. Maybe they just vanished into thin air.

Some questions were better left unanswered.

Evan turned over in bed, unable to feel comfortable. His head was throbbing. The painkillers weren't being all that helpful. Or maybe they were, and he just didn't know it. If they wore off, he'd probably be in a lot more pain. He kept his eyes closed, because whenever he opened them, it looked like things were crawling on the walls. It wasn't just the odd lighting, either. Maggots. He knew it was maggots. But there was nothing he could do about them except keep his eyes closed.

And Ada believed they could just pretend none of it was real.

Sleep was not going to come. Never would. Evan felt like he'd have to be awake for the rest of his life. If he fell asleep, he might never come out of his nightmares. Although, what was real and what was only dream had blurred so much that he couldn't always tell whether he was sleeping or awake. Like now. With the way the room was. And how disoriented he felt. But the pain in his head grew unbearable enough every several minutes that he knew that was real.

He didn't know how long he wafted in and out of hazy half-sleep, mixed visions of reality, and moments of rising paranoia before he was forced to call the nurse into the room. And it seemed like an hour before she came in.

Leaving the light off, the woman checked Evan's IV. "What is it, hon?" she asked him.

Like she wouldn't know. He felt weird with her there. All alone in the dark with this eerie glow in the room, shining on her white uniform. "My head," he said bluntly. As if it was obvious what his problem was.

She sighed. "Well, we can add a little more to the drip. Your first dose isn't entirely up, but you're almost to it. How's that?"

"Fine," he said, not looking at her. Hardly able to talk because of the pain searing through his brain, pressing hard against the front of his skull, about to explode out of his forehead. He didn't know if he could take it any longer. All thoughts of frustration and anger had disappeared because the only thing he could focus on right now was this pain and how much he needed to make it go away.

The nurse did something with the IV and then left. Evan heard her close the door, and he was alone again.

The night was neverending. Never, neverending. He waited for the pain to go away. Waited in the fluorescent blue-lit darkness, opening his eyes periodically, then shutting them when he remembered he didn't want to see the room. Didn't want to see anything. He felt as if he was floating. Couldn't get comfortable. Couldn't grab the bed tight enough. Couldn't hold on to everything. He felt like he was twisting this way and that forever. Pain in his head. Several times, he forgot where he was. He'd think he was in his bed at home, then that he was at an aunt's house of his, where he used to visit as a little kid. And once or twice, he envisioned himself lying in the leaves, in the woods. Dark woods, where the trees twisted upward into blackness except for one, shining white in front of all the rest. Because he had woken up in the woods before. With Ada. That one time. Dirt covering them. Strange images in their heads and panic in their hearts. Not knowing what had gone on, and not wanting to remember any of it. Having to recount the little that they recalled over and over and over. Until they felt that their tongues would bleed. Like everyone thought they knew something, but they couldn't. They couldn't know anything. Because they refused to remember. And then those boys shimmered into Evan's mind. Like soft-glowing ghosts in some horror movie. Bright and shining against a flat, frosty-green forest background. The boys who lived next door to the Farmers. Usually going back off in those woods . . . The older boy's words echoed in the space around the two, though neither of their mouths opened. Off in those woods . . . Those woods . . . Light flashed, like cameras were going off. Bright flashes. The boys began to disappear . . . Pain in his head . . .

"And how are we feeling, this morning?"

Evan's eyes blinked open. His dreams evaporated. He couldn't even recall the fact that he'd been dreaming. The bright light in the room was from the fluorescent overhead lamp. Outside, the day was a cool gray. The doctor was in the room, and a different nurse was checking his IV. It was the doctor who'd spoken.

Evan sat up, looked at her, then looked back down at where his knees were slightly arched under the blankets. "I feel better," he admitted. Because he did. The pain in his head had resided to a dull headache, kind of floating around somewhere behind his forehead. It wasn't nearly as pounding as it had been during the night.

"Good," said the doctor. She looked over some charts and stuff with the nurse, said some things Evan didn't really pay attention to. Then she said to him, "We'll run a few more tests on you this morning, just to make sure everything's right up there in that head of yours. But then you'll be able to go home."

She smiled. Evan kept his morose expression. A large portion of him didn't want to go back to his everyday routine.

The doctor gave a short laugh. "Well, you think you'd be happy to be getting out of here! Let's hope you've gone through the worst of the pain. You're out of the woods, now."

Saying that, the woman turned and left with the nurse, and Evan was left to ponder her last comment, which seemed, somehow, important. Woods. Had he been dreaming about them? What that boy had said . . .

His eyes darted toward the window in the room. Something red dripped down the glass. Evan was hardly perturbed.