Chapter 27
The next morning, Grace’s head was throbbing. She shuffled into the kitchen to search for some aspirin and found Hae pouring a bowl of cereal.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she grumbled. “What if you bumped into my dad?”
“Your father didn’t come home last night,” Hae said, nipping the bud of her anxiety before it bloomed. “The room for his car is empty.”
“The garage,” Grace corrected as she took the cereal box from him.
“Yes, a garage.” He crunched into the cereal. “This is quite…dry.”
Grace pulled the milk out of the fridge and poured it over his bowl, then settled at the counter. Hae slid the milk to her, and she grunted in thanks as she poured it over her own cereal.
Hae tried another bite and nodded in satisfaction. “There are so many new foods for me to try, I don’t think I’ll accomplish it all.”
“Well, if we can’t figure out how to send you back to the celestial realm, you could do a food tour of the world.”
Hae brooded into his bowl. She wondered if it upset him, the idea that he might not get to go home.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, studying his face. It didn’t look any worse for the wear after last night.
“Better,” Hae said, taking another huge bite. Some milk dripped down his chin, and Grace reached over with her napkin to wipe it off.
Hae stopped her, a slight frown on his face. “I can do it.”
“Oh, okay.” She held the napkin out to him.
“Um, thank you,” he said, dragging the words out like he found them difficult to say. He wouldn’t meet her eyes and she wondered if he was upset about something.
“Yeah, well, we have lots of napkins,” Grace said.
“No, for taking care of me last night.”
“Oh.” Now it was Grace’s turn to avoid his gaze. “Yeah, sure, I mean, of course.”
“No one’s ever taken care of me before, like that,” Hae said.
“Really?”
Hae shrugged. “Yes, well, when I had my powers, I could heal myself with a snap of a finger. So, I guess I never needed anyone’s help before. This is almost empty,” he said, his voice suddenly gruff as he shook the cereal box. “Be sure to get more.”
He jumped off his stool before Grace could reply. She started to call after him, but he was too quick, already pushing through the French doors, Haechi trotting after. The morning mist almost swallowed him as he walked to the pool house.
Grace went back to her cereal, a little soggy now. And wondered why she felt like she’d done something wrong.
At school on Monday, all anyone wanted to talk about was the attack at the carnival.
Grace kept out of it. She didn’t want to think about what had really happened or that those creatures were still out there, possibly terrorizing others.
She coped with the dread sitting deep in her gut by focusing on schoolwork. After a weekend of dealing with her supernatural problems, she felt like she was falling behind. Grace had to stick to a strict studying schedule so she could keep up with her full workload and extracurriculars.
When Grace walked into AP Psych, she couldn’t help but peek back at the empty desk in the second row. Piper’s seat.
“I heard it was a mountain lion,” Kylie Black said as Grace sat.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cece Martin said. “They said it was some guy. Probably drugged up and crazy.” She shuddered.
And Grace winced, thinking she might have thought the same if she hadn’t known the truth.
“Well, it’s better than what Adam was saying. He swears it was a vampire. Says it’s the same thing that attacked Chuck Wilson.” Kylie bared her own teeth like they were fangs.
The small hairs on the back of Grace’s neck stood up. The pale, ghastly face of the creature coming back to her.
Cece smacked her friend on the shoulder. “You shouldn’t say that, Kylie. I heard Piper is really sick.”
“Sick?” Kylie looked concerned for the first time. “How do you know that?”
“I heard from Matt, who heard from Rudy, whose mom is a nurse at the hospital. She said Piper is still there. She got like infected or something from the attack.”
Kylie gasped. “Like rabies?!”
“No, like cholera or something,” Cece said.
Grace almost told them you couldn’t get cholera from an attack, but they had already moved on to gossiping about some girl who got a mystery rash last semester and heavily implying it was an STI.
Grace ruminated on this new piece of information.
Piper had seemed delirious that night, but Grace had thought it was shock from the attack.
Had that thing somehow infected Piper with something?
And how was this all connected to Hae and Yuhwa?
And if it was truly connected to them, then was this all Grace’s fault too somehow?
Grace couldn’t get the questions out of her head. So, during lunch, she ducked into the empty journalism room and called her dad. At least she could try to get answers for one of them: What was actually wrong with Piper?
But, of course, he didn’t answer. He’d been so busy lately, Grace was worried. She wondered if she should stop by the hospital to check on him.
Instead, she called the nurses’ station, even though she knew she was only supposed to call that number for emergencies.
The nurse who answered wasn’t one Grace personally knew, so she left a message asking for a callback from her father. The nurse sounded annoyed but took the message.
“Gracie!”
She jumped as Zoe pounced enthusiastically the moment Grace entered the courtyard.
“Whoa, a little on edge?” Zoe leaned in, capturing Grace’s gaze. It felt eerily similar to Hae’s habit of intense staring. “Would this have anything to do with a certain classmate of ours who’s currently rumored to be down with the Black Plague?”
“It’s not the plague,” Grace said, shrugging out of Zoe’s grip and perching on their regular brick planter. But her heart dropped at the thought. What if Piper had some kind of supernatural illness that modern medicine couldn’t cure?
“So, this is what I figure.” Zoe settled next to Grace and pulled out a bag of salt and vinegar chips. “Something not-of-this-world attacked Piper and our new resident hottie-with-a-godly-body. True or false?”
“Maybe,” Grace said slowly, wondering how much she should reveal.
Zoe nodded. “Piper came to a bit when the ambulance got there. She was rambling on and on about monsters and angry gods.”
“Wait, what?” Grace said sharply. “What exactly did she say?”
“I think it was like, ‘He’s angry. He’ll kill us all. The end is nigh’?”
“Zo, this isn’t something to joke about.”
“Girl, I’m not joking. This really freaks me out, but you know humor is my coping mechanism.” They wrapped an arm around Grace’s shoulders, squeezing just tight enough that she realized Zoe really was freaked out.
“So, do I have to invest in some kind of weapon to fend off supernatural monsters tonight?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to figure this all out too.” Grace shook her head. “Did Piper say anything else?”
But Zoe’s eyes narrowed as they squeezed Grace’s hand to quiet her. “Later. Jock-boy is approaching.”
Grace looked up just as Lincoln walked over.
“Hey, friends,” he said, plucking up one of Zoe’s chips.
“You know better than to steal one of my favorite things on this planet,” they warned.
Lincoln rolled his eyes but held out the chip for Zoe to snatch back.
“Hey, Gracie,” he said.
“Hey.” Grace tried to keep her tone casual, but she couldn’t stop her shoulders from tensing. After what she witnessed this weekend, she couldn’t seem to look him directly in the eyes.
“What are you doing over here instead of at douche central?” Zoe asked, nodding to the group of basketball players across the courtyard.
“I can’t come say hi to my faves?” Lincoln asked, slinging an arm around Grace. Instead of her heart going aflutter like usual, anxiety buzzed between her ribs. “I actually wanted to come by and see how you were doing after the craziness at the carnival.”
“Oh yeah, the carnival.” Grace ducked out from under his arm. Earning an odd look from Lincoln.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
Grace started to say she was fine, like she usually did.
But she couldn’t forget how Lincoln had stood by while his friends mocked her.
There was a pressure building in her. Not the same as the fluttering anxiety wasps.
Or the awkward crush she usually felt around him.
But more like a lick of flames forming a ball of hot anger.
“Hey, you good?” Lincoln chuckled, poking at her ribs.
It just stoked the fire building inside her. “I heard you,” she blurted out.
“What?” Lincoln’s friendly smile started to melt.
“I heard you making fun of me with Griffin and Heather.”
Lincoln let out a little laugh. “What? No, you must have been hearing things.”
“I clearly heard Griffin call me Bakshit, and I clearly heard you staying completely silent while they laughed at me. You just let them do it.”
“Wait, what?” Zoe’s angry voice cracked out.
Lincoln’s eyes widened in shock before he shook his head. “They were just joking around. They didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Oh, come on.” Zoe scoffed. “You’re really going to use that excuse?”
“Zo, I got this,” Grace said. But her friend’s support made her feel emboldened as she addressed Lincoln again. “Do they do that a lot? ‘Joke around’ about me?”
She saw his jaw clench before he replied. “Look, they can get carried away sometimes. But it’s just for laughs. Why are you making this such a big deal?”
Grace just stared at him. Was he serious right now? He thought she was the one in the wrong? Lincoln was watching her expectantly, arms crossed. She couldn’t tell if it was a defensive stance or if he actually had the gall to be upset.
“Okay, well, I guess we have nothing else to talk about then.” She turned back to Zoe.
Lincoln scowled. “Seriously? You’re really not letting it go?”
“Yeah, seriously. You and your friends were assholes, Lincoln.” She felt on the verge of tears, so she kept her back to him. Zoe’s hand snaked around hers, giving it a supportive squeeze.
“I can’t control what the guys do.” He sounded exasperated.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Grace said. “It just would have been nice to feel like you cared that they were so awful to me.”
Lincoln lifted his eyes to the sky. “What was I supposed to do? Get into a fight with Griff? He’s the varsity captain.”
Grace could feel the fight draining from her. The longer this dragged on, the more agitated Lincoln was getting, the more she just wanted to be done with it. “Fine, then go be with your captain.”
“Really?”
Grace just shook her head.
“Gracie, come on.”
Grace refused to answer.
“Lincoln, just go, okay?” Zoe said.
“Yeah, fine. I guess I’ll see you around.”
He got up to leave, hesitating just long enough to make it clear that he expected Grace to stop him.
But she refused to spare him another glance. She knew if she did, she’d lose her resolve. Because despite how angry she was, she was somehow still terrified of losing him.
“Hey,” Zoe said, poking at Grace’s shoulder. “He was wrong for brushing it off like that.”
“Yeah,” Grace mumbled, feeling lower than low. She hated getting into fights.
“Why didn’t you tell me what happened at the carnival?”
“I was kind of distracted by more supernatural problems.”
“Well, you wanna talk about it now?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Zoe gave Grace a pointed look. “You sure? You’re not just saying you’re okay?”
“I swear.” Her phone buzzed, a welcome distraction, since Grace could see Zoe’s skeptical expression starting to form. “It’s the hospital.”
She held up the screen as proof and Zoe rolled their eyes, but nodded.
Grace answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Grace? It’s Anna. Stephanie said you called.”
“Oh, hi.” Grace recognized the voice of the charge nurse at the ER and covered the phone to whisper to Zoe, “It’s my dad.”
Grace stepped away, feeling bad about the small fib, but she wanted privacy for the conversation. “So, Anna, I was calling about the status of a friend, Piper Calloway. She was admitted yesterday?”
“Oh, sweetie, I can’t. Not unless you’re a family member or on the list of people with permission to access her record.”
“Not even if I was with her Saturday?” Grace used her most convincing begging voice.
“Sorry, hon. HIPAA.”
“Okay.” Grace felt defeated.
“Did you say Piper Calloway?” Anna asked.
“Yes,” Grace replied slowly. She didn’t like how concerned Anna sounded.
“And you said you were with her? Saturday night? Did you come into contact with her?”
Come into contact? That sounded ominous. “Um, yeah, I guess.”
“Honey, maybe you should come into the hospital after school.”
“Why? Is it bad?”
There was a loud incessant beeping on the other end of the line. “I’ll explain it when you come in, okay? I have to go.”
Anna hung up before Grace could reply.
She wasn’t a medical professional yet, but being the daughter of a doctor had taught her one thing. If the hospital was asking you to come in after having contact with a sick person, it couldn’t be good.