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“I’m thinking I’m tired,” he said slowly. “I’m thinking that my back hurts.”

“Yeah, mine does too.”

They had been sleeping on the floor of James’s art studio for a few days now. Out of the handful of places available to them, it was the only one that felt safe—the only one where it felt like they wouldn’t be found by whoever was hunting them. It wasn’t great, but he was used to sleeping rough. You were cold and uncomfortable, but you knew you would be and so you accepted it. It was an endurance test. Chris had lived with the mentality that required for a long time, and the mindset had come back to him easily, like an old T-shirt that still fit when he tried it on.

But the fit was far from a welcome one.

Since leaving the clinic, he’d become accustomed to the luxury of having a roof over his head. A hot shower first thing. A comfortable bed. He had even started to take those things for granted. And there was a small, unwelcome voice in his head now—one that had been with him to some extent his whole life—that was telling him he had never deserved any of it.

That a happy life was not for the likes of him.

James passed the coffee back to him.

“Here.”

“I said you could finish it,” Chris told him.

“Yeah, I know. But there’s still enough left for both of us.”

Chris smiled and accepted the carton.

Rituals were important. You had no choice but to go along with them.

That made him think of Alan Hobbes again. The old man had always liked to talk, but in recent months his thoughts had become increasingly detached from reality. There had been more and more moments when he was barely lucid.

It feels like a journey at the time. Step by step.

Oh?

Yes, Hobbes said.But the reality is that all the steps are there at once. Beginning, middle and end—they’re all the same. From above, the whole journey is there.

That had been inscrutable but other occasions had been worse. A few weeks ago, Hobbes had sat up suddenly and grabbed Chris’s wrist, all but screaming into his face.

Oh God, it’s under the bed.

It’s under the fucking bed!

Then he had collapsed back down and started to cry.

I miss you so much, Joshua.

So much.

Beside Chris, James sighed now.

“What the fuck are we going to do?” he said.

Chris didn’t answer. He just sipped the coffee carefully. Because while there wasn’t much left of it now—and the dregs were almost too cool to drink—he thought there was stilljustenough to pass back to James. And that was the deal. They might not have much, the two of them, and it might not be great. But it was theirs. And the reassurance of that had been right there in James’s question.

What weretheygoing to do?

“I don’t know,” Chris said. “But it’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

He smiled at James, wanting to believe his own words, but then he looked down at the backpack on the ground in front of him. It was packed well and tied tightly—another old habit—but he could sense it inside there.