“Xavin managed to steal those from the Church,” Molly explains. “Walked right in, did the right tricks in front of the right people, and they handed them over, complete with instructions. You’re survived two weeks thanks to them, so I guess we set them up right. Mrs. Dean even managed to identify the active stuff in your meds; turns out the Church of Gibborim has a lot of mind-numbing drugs on hand and will hand those over too.”
Gert only groans and slumps down on the bed, and Molly can no longer resist putting an arm around her. “We were scared, you know,” she says, her voice breaking. “We’d already lost so much, and now we’ve lost more. It wasn't just us, Gert. It happened everywhere in the world, people just disentegrating, at random as far as anyone could tell. We’ve still got no idea if either of our parents are still alive, and our mother might actually be better off dead anyway, unless this managed to kill that alien possessing her, and please, Gert, we don’t want to lose you, too. I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you, but you’ve got to live. Don’t you think Old Lace would’ve wanted you to?”
“I don’t see how you need me,” Gert mumbles. “Don’t have any special powers without my dinosaur, and I’m not smart like Alex was either.”
“You know this isn’t about that!” Molly’s outright crying now. “You’re still my older sister, and that’s all that I still have!”
A hand weakly touches hers; Molly takes hold of it, careful not to jostle the line plugged into her arm. “I’ve been sitting here for two weeks, with Xavin barely here because she’s obsessed with finding out if Jonah’s wife and daughter are still around and if they caused this, though I don’t see what the point of that would’ve been for them.”
“Grief?” Gert suggests. “Revenge for the two members of their family we killed? But they would’ve needed to be able to choose the targets to make sure they didn’t kill their hosts, and then they would’ve killed all of us.” At least her voice is growing in strength a little. “What’s…it’s just us and Karolina left, right? I suppose we still have to keep her mother here to keep her safe.” They took Chase back after everything for pretty much the same reason. Molly thinks she might even forgive him, now that he’s dead.
“Them and Xavin,” says Molly. She thinks about the plan’s she’s formed in her head while she’s sat here, ones she’s not sure their current companions will go along with, because they involve a target currently unknown, but probably much more powerful even than the two biggest ones on their old hit list. About the Fistigons she’s sure Chase would want Gert to have, even now.
For now, she says, “All three of them are out right now. You can ask them about it when they come back; they’ll probably explain it better than me. Meanwhile, you’ve still got a lot of recovering to do. At least you never went into a full coma, but you’ve probably had a lot of muscle atrophy. I’ve been reading about that. And you can start eating again, but you should probably start with mushy stuff; we’ve been trying to prepare that as best we can.”
“You can’t have read about recovery from having the dinosaur you’re psychically linked to die, can you?” Gert asks miserably. “I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again.”
Molly moves her arm away only long enough to wipe off the last of her tears. “We’ll take care of you for as long as you need it. You’ve been strong for me a lot all the time we’ve been sisters. Now, I can be strong for you.”