Breathe in

Hope and Recovery

Katie tapped her foot anxiously, waiting for the doorbell to ring—unless they'd figured him out, unless they'd caught James and stolen Keith back—back where she couldn't help him. Where she would never find him.

Finally, finally, the doorbell rang, and Katie jumped up to answer it. James gave her an awkward wave. "You wanted to adopt a cat?

Katie grabbed him by his shirtfront and dragged him inside the house, closing the door quickly. "Okay, good, great, I've got a plan, come on."

"Yes," James said as he followed her upstairs, "So. This plan of yours. It isn't the kind of plan that ends with me getting caught, right?"

"What? No, I'm not an idiot." Katie opened the door to her room. "How is he?"

"Better. Not great, but better. He's still... I can see ribs. But he's not shaking all over anymore. And he can walk and stuff. So I guess that's good?"

Katie's nose wrinkled. "How does he go to the bathroom?"

James scowled. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Alright. Oh! I've got something for him!" She bounded to her closet and pulled out a red jacket, and a pair of fingerless gloves.

She rather enjoyed the way that James' jaw dropped. "How did you get those?"

"Check the pocket."

James did. His expression shot up further as his fingers curled around an inhaler. "Seriously, where did you get this?"

Katie shrugged. "Mysterious package with no return address."

"Dr. Orla."

Katie frowned. "Who?"

"Dr. Jennifer Orla. Keith's great defender. She hid him at her house," he clarified, "She got caught day one because she was stealing him an inhaler."

Katie nodded thoughtfully. "It could be Iverson..."

"Iverson?!"

"Yeah. I erased you from the feeds through his office."

"And?"

"And I think he wantedme to do it. I don't know. It looked like he helped Keith- not a lot, but in little ways. You know. The only way he could without getting tried for treason."

"Oh."

Katie shrugged, going to her closet and pulling out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. "Here. They—they were Matt's. From before he grew into a ginormous beanpole. I figured Keith might want a change of clothes."

"Forget what Keith might want, Iwant him to have a change of clothes. He kind of smells."

Katie pushed back a laugh. "James!"

"He does! I know it's not his fault, but it's still not fun to be in there!"

"Okay, okay." Katie hummed to herself. "How is he? I mean—mentally."

James sighed. "I don't know. Sometimes he's fine, and then sometimes he's having nightmares and he can't even tell who I am. That's another thing- he's having trouble with faces. He knows people—like, if I say a name, he knows who I'm talking about, but if I show him a face..." James shrugged. "He can't tell me who it is."

Katie frowned. "Prosopagnosia?"

"You say that word like I know what it means."

"Face blindness. There's a tissue in your temporal lobe—I don't remember what it is, the something-or-other gyrus, I don't know. If it gets injured, or sometimes you're just born with it messed up or whatever, you might not be able to recognize faces."