8:18am
Peter woke slowly. Last night he had not been disturbed by the vivid nightmare, the images of his family being taken from him. He was in the living room of his friend's house, lying on the couch covered with a thin blanket. Matt was awake, sitting on the floor with his back leaning on the side of the couch. He drank a glass of scotch, coughing every so often.
Peter groaned quietly and shifted positions on the couch to get more comfortable.
"Hey Pete," Matt said softly.
"Back from the hospital already?"
"Yeah."
"God, I'm sorry, Matt. I didn?ean to hurt you."
"I know. It's not your fault... I should have waked you. You were just reacting to the thing in your dream."
"That's no excuse. I still shouldn't have done it."
"Well, it would have been nice if you hadn't..."
Both men laughed quietly, but Peter's faded quickly. He still felt guilty for doing this to his friend. "Where is everyone? I guess they went back to Central Lab?" he asked, rising to get a shirt.
"No, actually, they're in the bedroom over there." Matt pointed to the closed door. "They agreed to share a room so we could be more comfortable."
"Aren't they sweet."
After he found and put on a gray T-shirt, Peter sat back down on the couch. "What happened with the Hunntersen case? Anton told me that everything was being packed up."
"It turns out that someone made a river water bomb. They jellied some of the water from the nearby river in a paint can, stuck explosives in the can, and set it off at night in the dining room, after breaking the girl's picture and her mother's chandelier," Matt filled him in.
"Man, I hate being suckered."
"It's part of the job, I guess..."
"For once in the past few weeks, I'm not tired."
"Well, you slept so much yesterday, I guess some of it wore off."
"And I didn't have that nightmare, either."
"Maybe cause you were so tired, you had no energy to dream..."
"I think I'll just shut up and take advantage of it..." Peter said, lying down. "I could use some more sleep... Anton said he'd help me beat this, whatever it is, so I have a feeling I'll have to go through a lot of tests tomorrow..."
"Goodnight, then."
"Yeah."
Matt finished his drink and went back to sleep, too. The house was quiet. |
