Agency

59 None of Me Knows

Verity came awake, startled semi-upright by a dream she immediately forgot, in a bed strangely wide, in a room wider still.

“You okay?” Virgil asked quietly, from behind the closed door to the other room.

“Yeah,” she managed. “Dream.”

“Sounded like it,” he said. “I’m up, if you need anything.”

“Thanks. I’m okay.”

Realizing she was in her mummy-bag liner, though she didn’t remember getting it before she’d crawled into bed. Still dark outside, to judge by the lack of light at the edges of the curtains. Groping gingerly around on the nearest bedside table for the glass of water she now remembered leaving there. Finding it, she drank half and lay back in the liner, under the Clift’s duvet. The traffic was quieter now. Don’t think about any of it, she advised herself, then decided that wasn’t working.

Getting up on an elbow, she propped herself with pillows and found the remote. The screen, opposite the foot of the bed, was as wide. She flipped through news channels, volume down. Fox seemed to still be mainly devoted to the president’s pre-election e-mails, but CNN and MSNBC looked as though they’d both been straight Qamishli for long enough to see it under the presenters’ eyes. She stopped when she saw the president, speaking from yet another podium. Reminding her of everything she’d just advised herself not to think about, so she turned off the television, shoved the pillows around, curled up in the familiarity of the mummy-bag liner, and fell asleep.