Chapter 24 · The Flesh Key

The thing in the tank had Dad's face.

Kai's lungs stopped working. Not metaphor. Actual stopped. The air just sat there in his throat like a fist.

The tank was tall, maybe eight feet, bolted to the stone floor with iron brackets that looked older than the subway tunnels back home. Liquid inside, greenish, thick enough that the body floating in it moved slow when it drifted. Tubes ran into its arms. Into its spine. The chest rose and fell.

It was breathing.

"Kai." Vera's voice came from behind him, low and careful. The voice she used when someone was about to do something stupid. "Don't touch it."

He was already moving. Didn't remember deciding. His boots hit the stone and his hand went up to the glass, palm flat, fingers spread. The surface was warm. Warmer than it should be.

The body's eyes opened.

Not all the way. Just enough. Slits of white and dark brown, same as the eyes that used to check Kai's homework at the kitchen table. Same as the eyes that hadn't looked at anything in three years because they'd been in an urn on a shelf in Queens.

"No." Kai's voice cracked.