Freya woke with the chills. Her sheets were so damp with sweat she was afraid she’d wet the bed. She was lightheaded, and her joints had a distant, sweet ache. Like an idiot, she’d given herself a fever, swimming in November.

She remained stuck in the tangle of covers, trying to remember what she’d been dreaming about. It had been so long since she’d had a dream she could remember. The Lunesta obliviated them and left only a metallic taste in her mouth. Freya had woken out of a black hole every morning since she began the prescription.

Today was different, whether it was the near-death-experience or the fever, the night had been full of strange dreams. She’d dreamed of tall spires, needle-sharp violent triangles pointed at a pure black sky.

Beneath her feet, pulses of light fired across an endlessly branching network of lines. It had all made sense in the dream, but the significance melted away in the light of morning.

The fever pendulum swung while she chased the dream, and she was suddenly burning. She scrambled to escape the comforter and walked naked through the hallway. Freya used the bathroom without turning on the light. She didn’t want to see herself.

She thought about changing the sheets on her bed and trying to go back to sleep, but it wouldn’t work. No matter how sick she felt, she had to go bail out Lassa.

Another strange thing, she was hungry. Freya never ate breakfast anymore. Was that a sign she was building a tolerance to the Lunesta? It was an awful thought. Sleeping was the only thing she had to look forward to. She didn’t even want to think about it.

As she pushed the thought away, she remembered she had leftovers in the fridge. She could find out if Chinese food was better the day after. She’d never had a chance before. To bring back leftovers from her secret dinners with Randall would be tempting the dragon.

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But there was no truth to the idea. The dumplings were cold and greasy, the beef tough and chewy. Still, she finished everything and carefully hid the containers at the bottom of the trash. As she ate, she stared at the meteorite’s shell, waiting for the purple orb to do something.

It didn’t. Freya felt much more clear-headed after eating. She decided she wasn’t really that sick, probably just didn’t want to go bail Lassa out. She turned her attention back to the meteorite. She’d half-expected it not to be there this morning, the whole thing a fever dream. She ran her fingers over the cold metal shell. It was real.

She really wanted to just leave her mother in jail. She could take the meteorite and purple core straight to the biology lab at Grayson and spend the morning examining it under a microscope.

The violet core had pricked her once, but she couldn’t resist picking it up again. It was warm, as if it had sat in the sun. Freya took a closer look, rolling it over in her palm, and there was no sign of any crack or protrusion. She looked at her palm, and there was no sign of a puncture.

She set the orb down again.

Did I die at the river? Is this Hell?

She had to give it some thought. It didn't feel like hell. But an effective hell would have to feel real, wouldn't it? As much as she didn't believe in God, the idea of Hell was not so easily dismissed.

One hour a night and back to reading, and at 9 o'clock every night, she could take the Lunesta.

Freya thought about the pill bottle. You couldn't kill yourself with Lunesta. She'd looked it up on the internet. Even if you took the whole bottle, it would just knock you out, and you would recover. Lassa hated pills, and there was nothing else in the house but Advil, and that was another thing you couldn't kill yourself with. You would have to take a whole pile of it. It wasn't how Freya would choose to go.

The river wasn't either. She wasn't sure how her thoughts had gotten here again. It hadn't even been a full day since she almost drowned. It felt like it was just a matter of time.

She was alone in the empty house with only the quiet humming of the refrigerator and the whispery sound of the heat pump in the vents. She didn't want to go to the jail but, more, she didn't want to see Lassa. If only there were a way to leave her in there.

She shook her head.

It was better to just tear the bandage off.