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dead to the world until a fistful of knuckles clobbered
my arm and I was confronted with Jamie’s infuriated stare.
    “Ow!” I squealed. “What the hell was that
for?”
    “What do you think it was for?!” Jamie
shouted, her quivering curls coming alive around her face. “I get a
call in the middle of the night to pick you up at the police
station and you’re not even going to tell me why?!”
    “Jesus!” I screamed. “Don’t have a stroke! I
was going to!” I glared at her and rubbed my wounded shoulder, then
yanked off my jacket. The interior of the car was suddenly too
warm, and I wanted to see if she’d left a bruise, so I’d have an
excuse to kill her.
    “Well?!” she shrieked.
    “Okay!” Damn but she was demanding. “I
just…went out for a walk…” I smirked, “and somehow ended up
here.”
    Jamie was not amused. Refusing to drive the
car until I told her everything, and of course interrupting me with
questions the whole time, she compelled me to confess. I started
with the dream, because there wasn’t much point in exclusion. As an
assistant pill-pusher at the local pharmacy, Jamie subsists
primarily on caffeine and gossip, yielding an unparalleled power of
persuasion. She’d followed me around for the past year, virtually
forcing me to like her, her annoying cuteness and intense loyalty
equally unwavering. She’s like a stray dog, really. Besides, I had
no one else in which to confide my troubles. And that made Jamie my
best friend.
    “And can you guess who the masked man was?” I
pocketed my cigarettes and lighter – still determined to smoke
those bastards – and tossed my jacket into her backseat, where it
landed softly in a pile of discarded Chinese food cartons. She was
waiting impatiently for me to speak again. “Emmett Sutter,” I
said.
    The expected squeal, the scoff, the confused
look…none of those came. Instead she closed her eyes. “He’s in
trouble,” she whispered. A storm passed across her face; her long
lashes quivered. Seconds later it was gone, and her eyes opened.
“So was he?” she asked.
    “Was he what?”
    “Was he drunk?”
    “No. He didn’t smell like alcohol. Probably
just high as a kite.” Dread knotted my stomach. Emmett’s words in
the car…I could not deny they were haunting me. “By the way…isn’t
insulin some sort of prescription medication?”
    “Yes. It’s used to lower blood sugar when it
gets too high. You’ve never known anyone who was diabetic?” Jamie
looked incredulous. “That’s like, half the population now.”
    “Sometimes I think your job at the pharmacy
is just an excuse to be in other people’s business.”
    “Please. Everyone knows the national
statistics on diet-related illness.” She tilted her head to one
side. “But come on,” she said agreeably. “Of course it is.”
    “Is Emmett diabetic?” Jamie worked at the
only pharmacy in town, and chances were good that the Sutters used
it.
    “No,” she answered, frowning. A trace of the
storm clouding her expression a moment ago crept back into her
eyes. “But Ead is. He actually takes insulin for type one diabetes.
Sometimes hereditary, and not diet-related, as it happens,” she
murmured.
    He gave me insulin . My body felt as
though it were sinking through the floorboard of the car.
    “Sara? What’s wrong?”
    I gritted my teeth. “But you wouldn’t use
it…like, to get high or anything…you wouldn’t become addicted to
it, would you?”
    “It doesn’t really work like that.” Jamie
said. “You know, they did insulin coma experiments on patients at
the asylum…” her voice was distant, almost inaudible.
    “What?”
    “Never mind.” She shook her headful of curls.
“Are you sure Emmett was high? You know he’s not into drugs, right?
I mean, he doesn’t even take pharmaceuticals. He’s…sort of
a…fanatic about it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, you know he’s a vegan…” I looked at
her questioningly and she continued. “You