Arius had his head against the car door as the patrol vehicle pulled back out onto the highway. Like a fugitive holding a valuable possession that someone had already attempted to steal once, Gabriel was holding onto Arius’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure if it was reassuring or frightening—the feeling of Arius’s shallow, rapid breaths under his hand.

              A “Welcome to Tulippi” sign passed on one side of the small highway, and as if the sign represented a physical line, the highway merged into six lanes. City outskirts closed in on both sides of the road, and the patrol car turned off onto a street heading toward downtown.

              “Speeder,” the officer in the passenger seat unexpectedly announced, when they were perhaps five miles away from the skyscrapers looming on the horizon. He reached out and switched on the lights.

              “We’re pulling this guy over?” the driver questioned uncertainly. “Aren’t we taking these kids to the hospital?”

              The other officer dismissed the question with a shrug. “You should learn to recognize druggies when you see them, Rookie.” He cast a mild glance through the metal grating separating the front two seats from the back bench.

              Gabriel sat up straight. “Druggies?” His face flushed, heartrate leaping yet again.

              The officer turned casually back to the windshield. “Deadweights probably just want a free stay at the hospital. They can wait for it. And you need more practice writing tickets.”

              The police car pulled off onto a small city street and came to a stop behind a gray pickup. Gabriel’s mind was racing and pounding as the officer behind the wheel got out and started toward the vehicle ahead of them.

              “I’ll get the plate number, I suppose,” the officer in the passenger seat said as the door shut. But no sooner had the driver walked away than the other officer’s expression completely changed. He leaned over and looked into the back, eyes fixing Gabriel with an intensity like he was about to spew a mouthful of hate at the twenty-two-year-old.  Something quite different came out of his mouth. “This is your one chance to get out of my car. The police force can’t do anything for you. The hospital won’t be able to hide you. Last time we had a kid come to us for protection, the lab whipped out a court order.”

              Gabriel’s face went blank with confusion. “Wha-What?”

              “Do I look like I’m kidding you right now?” the officer demanded. “I know you’re from the lab. I can see his tattoo.” He made a flat-handed gesture to the ink mark visible on Arius’s neck.

              “You…You must be confused…” Gabriel began, eyes straying from the 21 on Arius’s neck back to the officer’s face. “We didn’t come from a lab…We came from a clinic. A clinic we visit every—”

              “Look, we get to the hospital, and he’s not getting out, alright?” the officer cut him off. “They’ll come after you. They’ll get through any authorities who try to protect you, and they will come after you.”

              “He—He needs a hospital,” Gabriel tried.

              The officer shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re running from. But if there’s any chance he could recover without one, he may be better off on his own. There’s not a hospital in the country that could keep him from them.”

              What lab? Gabriel wanted to ask. How does he recognize Arius’s tattoo? He must be confused. He must think we’re from somewhere we’re not. But the pieces were already beginning to slide together in Gabriel’s head. The research portion of the clinic, that must be what the officer was referring to. The way Arius’s nurse had been so unconcerned, so deliberate—like the carfentanil had not been an accident. How Arius and Amana had always gone to the same clinic, every year, no matter what. Where had the two even come from? “We can’t actually adopt them,” Gabriel’s mother had said once, “Because we didn’t get them through CPS. They’re as much a part of our family as you and me, though.” Medical costs, Gabriel had assumed the small print read. If Arius and Amana were legally adopted, the entirety of their medical costs would be up to his mother to pay out of pocket or settle with insurance.

              “Arius, get up.” Gabriel’s grasp on Arius’s shoulder tightened, and he pulled the nineteen-year-old upright. The officer got out of the vehicle and opened the door for them. He pressed a folded sweatsuit into Gabriel’s arms, then stepped away. “He needs to change. They’ll be looking for him.” With that, he shut the door behind the two boys and got back into the patrol car.

              Then they were out on the street. With his arm around Arius’s trembling shoulders, Gabriel started quickly down the pedestrian-dotted sidewalk. A hardware store appeared around the corner, and he turned off and started across the parking lot. People were staring at them from every direction as Gabriel led Arius through the automatic doors and straight for the restrooms. A janitor right outside the bathrooms nearly lost his jaw as Gabriel hurried past him.

              Arius looked like he was close to passing out as Gabriel ushered him into the handicapped stall at the back of the restroom. A toilet flushing nearby told him they were not alone, but Gabriel shoved aside thoughts of what the strangers in the store must think of them. He unfolded the sweatsuit the officer had given to him and handed first the pants to Arius. “Sit down on the toilet if you need to,” Gabriel told him.

              Arius did so. His movements were painfully slow as he leaned down to take off his shoes. Gabriel watched him for exactly seven seconds before he darted forward and removed Arius’s shoes for him.

              “Gabe…Gabriel…” Arius’s fingers fell away from the muddy Vans. “Gabriel, what are we going to do? What’s…What’s going on? Where are we going to go?”

              “I’ll figure it out,” Gabriel replied sharply. He pressed Arius’s feet through the pantlegs, then helped the younger boy stand and pull them up.

              “Mom…and…Amana…” Arius began.

              “I don’t know.” Gabriel lifted the hospital gown and drew it up over Arius’s head. For a tingling moment, he was left looking at Arius’s naked torso. Looking, because—he found strangely—he was looking. He had laughed it off sometimes, Gabriel numbly realized. A lot of times, perhaps: that feeling he had watching Arius skate from the top of the parking garage. Like that day Gabriel had gone to the high-school to pick Arius up, and he had stumbled into something strange and uncomfortable involving Arius and another eleventh grader. Like that time Arius had first decided to wear his hair longer and told Monica he didn’t want her to cut it that month. “Am I going to have a bad boy for a little brother?” Gabriel had teased. “A little heart-breaker f-boy?” He had laughed at Arius’s reaction. Laughed, maybe because laughing it off was easier than facing it.

              Arius seemed to sense the atmosphere in that restroom stall had suddenly become strange. He drew his arms carefully across his body, shoulders turning slightly away from Gabriel. But he couldn’t hide how beautiful that body was. Slender and fit, the flawless tone of his skin. A physique Gabriel knew without a doubt was too lean to be healthy, but equally undeniably beautiful.

              “There.” Gabriel gathered the sweatshirt and put it over Arius’s head. He turned away as Arius put his arms through the sleeves and pulled the hem down over the waistband of the pants. The sweatsuit dwarfed him. But it was better than the damp, muddy hospital gown Gabriel still gripped in one hand. The twenty-two-year-old dropped the papery fabric wad into a wastebasket outside the stall, then walked over to the sinks. “Wash up,” he told Arius.

              “Gabriel, I don’t have my meds.” Arius’s voice was a whisper. He stood beside the sink closest to the paper towel dispenser, dirt-streaked face lifted pitifully to Gabriel’s.

              “Don’t you have an implant?” Gabriel found he could not meet those frightened and exhausted oval eyes. “For the very purpose of covering you in case you miss your meds one day?” He dipped his hands under the faucet and began washing his face.

              “N-No.” Arius’s voice dropped still further. “They took it out last year, remember?” His words cracked, fading into silence.

              Gabriel’s hands froze on his own skin. For a heart-pounding moment, he found himself staring into the mirror. The dirt streaks on his face. Sharp, chiseled, features with pleasing symmetry. Blue eyes like his mother and his twin sister. Curly blond-brown hair that almost looked gold when sunlight hit it just right. “Last year?”

              He remembered it, now. Arius’s doctor taking a scalpel to his arm, the tiny cut he made, the bandage Arius had worn for a few days after. Nobody had taken it as a red flag that they had removed Arius’s implant for no reason at all. Nobody had picked up on the implant removal perhaps meaning they planned to withdraw treatment. Withdrawing treatment and purposefully killing the patient were two very different things, though.

              They had had Arius’s correct medication right there on the tray. What was the meaning of that? A prop? They expected the passersby to recognize Arius’s medication cocktail on the counter, and still sit back when he was given something completely different? It made no sense. And yet, what else could it be, other than a prop? Staff at that clinic had said repeatedly that Arius and Amana had conditions that no one else in documented medical history had. It naturally followed that no one else—no other patient of that clinic, at least—would be receiving the exact same medication combination Arius was. But that exact combination had been right there on that tray in Arius’s room! Had the carfentanil been an accident?

              “Yeah,” Arius whispered. His eyes were becoming watery again. This time, it was probably not because of a drug manipulating his composure.

              “Arius, I’ll figure it out, alright?” Gabriel promised. “I’ll figure it out.”

              Arius’s face moved with a slight nod, and he stepped up to the sink in front of him. Gabriel watched out of the corner of his eye as the nineteen-year-old began carefully cleaning the dirt off his face and arms.

              “I should take your IV needle out,” Gabriel said at last. He washed his hands twice, then pulled several paper towels out of the dispenser. Arius obediently held his hand out for Gabriel. “I’ll do this as cleanly as I can,” Gabriel told him, pressing a folded paper towel over the needle in Arius’s hand. “It’s far from ideal, though. We’ll have to try really hard to keep it clean, okay?” With brief, gentle movements, he pulled the tape pieces off the tube. Then, quickly and firmly, he slid the needle free of Arius’s hand, immediately pressing the folded paper towel down after it. He used the IV tape to fasten the paper towel in place. “Put pressure on it,” Gabriel instructed, pressing Arius’s other hand over the IV incision.

              There was a dirt streak on the side of Arius’s neck, missed perhaps because of the tattoo ink beside it. Gabriel wet one of the other paper towels and gently wiped the dirt away. His thumb brushed across the two numerals, and he dropped his hand when Arius shifted away. It was strange that the mark had been there since Arius was a child, and no one knew what it was from.