Chapter 24. Fever

Rae POV

The fever came back that night, and this time it didn't drift. It hit like a dropped transmission.

One minute I was sitting on my bed reading Grandpa's notebook, trying for the hundredth time to crack the second code. The next, the room tilted and my skin was on fire, and I was on the floor without remembering how I got there.

I heard my door open. Wade's voice, very far away, saying my name. Then his hands, careful, lifting me back onto the bed like I was something made of blown glass.

"Doc," he said into his phone. "Now."

***

I remember pieces.

Doc Amos's bow tie, crooked, at two in the morning. A thermometer beeping. Doc's voice saying a hundred and four, and something about my body adjusting, and no hospital,