ETHAN WAS BURNING UP. His lower leg was grossly swollen and stank. He was so hot he could barely think. He also needed water desperately. He’d sucked up the river water that had lain in a thin layer over the floor and now his prison was bare. He didn’t know how much time had passed since his recapture.
The meaning of Quinn’s message of Two more still eluded him and he was too sick—too near death, he realized—to try to figure it out anymore. His idea of developing a way to communicate with his captors had been stupid. Even if he’d managed to speak to the threads clearly, they would never have let him go. They must be able to see the difficulties he was in, yet they still held on to him. He was only an observation subject to them. They were curious but they held no sympathy toward him whats
