Chapter 10
It takes about a week for me to work up the bravery to take my first life. Well, not actually taking a life, since I plan to find people who are already dying. The days have been bleeding into each other, marked only by the shadows crawling across my bedroom with the rising and setting of the sun.
I occasionally go downstairs for food, but I never stay down there long. Seeing Ambrose’s smug detachment about this entire situation only infuriates me more.
But at this point, anything would be better than another day of confinement. I need to do something, and the most productive use of my time involves getting through this bargain I’ve made as quickly and painlessly as possible.
“I’m leaving,” I announce as I stand in the entryway of the living room with my arms crossed.
Ambrose raises an eyebrow from where he sits on the couch. “Is that so?”
“Yes. I’m going to fulfill my end of this bullshit deal you tricked me into. I need directions and car keys.”
His lips curl into a smile. “Wow, look at you taking initiative.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
He stands from his spot on the couch. “Where do you need directions to?”
“The nearest hospital.”
He flashes me a questioning expression as if to say, “Are you sure?” but when I stay stone-faced and expectant, he brushes past me into the dining room where a notebook lays open on the table.
He writes out directions, tears the page from the perforated edge, then hands it to me. I skim the elegant cursive handwriting, though I’m not sure why I’m checking it over. It’s not like I know my way around here enough to know if anything was off.
“Keys to the Camaro are on the key ring by the door. And here,” Ambrose says, pulling the necklace over his head and holding it out to me. “I think you’ll be able to channel a portion of its power, but I’m not sure, so don’t count on that for your plans.”
I snatch it from his outstretched hand. “How do I do that?”
“Just focus on what you want, envision yourself becoming invisible to anyone whose attention you don’t want, or vice versa. You’ll be back tonight?”
I wish I could say, “No, fuck off, I’m leaving forever,” but I can’t. Instead, I answer with a muttered, “Yeah,” before snatching up the keys and slamming the door behind me.
I probably look like a teenager throwing a tantrum with my attitude, but I really don’t care.
I need some sort of release for this anger churning inside of me, and Ambrose is annoyingly calm about all of it thus far.
Still, no reaction is much better than the reactions I had come to expect back home.
A jolt of fear still pierces me whenever I snap at him, but the violence I’ve come to expect as a result of my disobedience never appears.
I slide into the leather seat of the old black Camaro in the driveway and turn the key in the ignition.
It hums beneath me, the gravel crunching under the tires as I pull out of the driveway.
After checking Ambrose’s directions one more time and memorizing where my next two turns will be, I turn onto the serpentine mountain road and accelerate.
The road twists and turns, rises and falls, and the speedometer climbs.
Soon, I’m flying down the sharp curves of the winding mountain rounds with the wind whipping my hair in every direction. I’m going too fast, taking the turns too sharp, but I don’t care. The recklessness is exhilarating, the combination of danger and liberation stirring something deep within me.
For the first time in a very long time, I feel alive.
My stomach swoops as I crest a hill too quickly and I smile. It makes no sense, since I know I’ll need to head back to the cabin before the end of the night, but the temporary freedom overwhelms me with euphoria.
It’s funny how such small, simple moments like this can be so profound.
These infinitesimal slivers of happiness are like pinpricks of starlight in the black sky—transient, but enough to shine a little light in the darkness.
And for now, that’s enough to keep me going for one more hour, one more day.
I manage to follow Ambrose’s directions without getting lost, passing by the occasional dilapidated buildings with rusted tin roofs and caving walls being consumed by overgrowth. Finally, the hospital comes into sight as I pull off the highway exit.
I park on the far end of the hospital parking lot, in the shadows cast by the perfectly straight line of trees.
I don’t plan on doing anything overtly suspicious, but it feels right to be obscured in the shadows.
Or maybe it’s just my subconscious telling me to stay hidden because of what I’m about to do.
What am I about to do? Even I’m not entirely sure.
I figured a hospital would be the best place to find what I’m looking for: someone who’s about to die anyway but is young enough that they may have a couple decades to give.
Ambrose had said the years collected go by how many years the person would “naturally” have, so if someone’s in the hospital due to an accident, they’re probably my best bet.
I don’t know if I’ll manage to find someone who fits the bill, but at the very least I can get a few months from an elderly person.
Maybe.
Honestly, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. All I know is that I need to gather 500 years of human life for Ambrose before I’m free from him forever, and I want to do it as quickly as possible.
As soon as I cross the threshold of the automatic sliding doors into the cool, sterile hospital, my stomach churns.
I hate hospitals. The waiting rooms where every person is either agitated or exhausted, the overworked staff who still manage to be everywhere at once, the subtle scent of disinfectant permeating the air in every room.
It’s all overwhelming in the worst way. At least the last time I was in a hospital, I was too worried about my own life-or-death situation to notice much else.
I press my hand against my chest and sense the weight of the necklace against my skin. Ambrose had said I might be able to channel a small portion of his power through the artifact. I guess now’s a good time to test it out.
I focus my attention on the stone tucked beneath my shirt, willing myself to blend in as I visualize peoples’ attention shooting past me rather than landing on me.
But there’s no real way to know if it works, though the faint hum of energy through my veins lets me know that the magic is doing something. It’s either that or my anxiety.
For a while, I stand against a wall and survey the people in the waiting room, taking note of those who look particularly distraught.
When a nurse comes out and asks a family to follow her to a different waiting room, I slip behind the four of them and walk as silently as I can manage, staying far enough away that I don’t attract their attention but close enough that a random passerby might think I’m with them.
I’m not sure who they’re here for, but the thick tension emanating from the group indicates fearful uncertainty.
One of the women—a brunette who looks to be only a few years older than me—has red-rimmed eyes and a panicked expression, while the man whose hand she’s holding seems stoic, but his leg hasn’t stopped bouncing with worry since they’ve been here.
The other couple that’s been huddled in beside them has been sending a flurry of text messages and talking to each other in low voices, likely updating others on whatever has happened.
The two women bear a slight resemblance to each other, and the blonde keeps putting a hand on the brunette’s shoulder as if to reassure her. The men are mostly silent. Waiting.
Maybe one of the women’s parents is back there. It would make sense why both of them are here with their husbands. And I hate that I’m calculating how many years I’d get from someone old enough to be their parent. Twenty years? Forty if I’m really lucky.
This is so fucked up.
The only solace I can find in this scenario is that if someone is dying anyway, this won’t do any additional harm, even as the wrongness of it all coils in my gut.
When we reach the smaller waiting room tucked into the end of a hallway, the nurse says something in a hushed tone to the brunette woman, who nods before gingerly lowering herself into a chair.
There’s only one other person back here—an elderly woman who seems to be alone. She’s reading a worn paperback book and tapping her foot incessantly.
It’s so fucking quiet I can hardly stand it.
I keep my focus on channeling the power of not-quite-invisibility, and though eyes pass over me, nobody really seems to give me more than a passing glance. They notice me in the same way they might notice the lamp in the corner.
After what feels like hours but is probably only twenty minutes, a doctor appears in the entryway.
His voice is too gentle when he asks, “Mr. and Mrs. McConnell?”
The couple I’ve been watching shoots to their feet and rushes to him. Their companions stand and follow closely, squeezing each other’s hands so tightly the woman’s knuckles are white.
I don’t hear all the words, but I catch enough.
Severe traumatic brain injury.
No chance of recovery.
I’m so sorry.
The woman’s wails of grief ricochet off the walls of the small room. The sound is like a knife twisting in my chest.
“No,” she sobs, “my baby. No. He can’t be gone. This isn’t real.” She shakes her head furiously, as if she can shake away the reality of what’s happening, vacillating between anguish and disbelief.
I was wrong. It’s not her parent that’s dying.
It’s her son.
Silent tears stream down her husband’s face, and his chest shakes with the sobs he’s desperately trying to hold in. He wraps her in his arms so tightly I’m afraid they both might break.
My heart splinters into a million pieces.