Chapter 5
5
I WAS SUCKED THROUGH A DARK tunnel. At least that was how it sounded—as if large amounts of water had suddenly spiraled down a recently unclogged drain.
I rocketed awake with a gasp.
I sat upright, my gaze flickering about wildly. My heart pounded. A scream caught in my throat, which I managed to wrangle down to a strangled yelp.
I wasn’t in the field.
I was in a bed. In the nurse’s office. My hands clutched the bedding beneath me so tightly that the sheets were in danger of ripping. My chest heaved, my breaths stuttering in panic.
What had happened? Was that a dream? How had I gotten here?
“Camden?”
I snapped my head to the side, thinking for a moment I’d see the girl from the field, but it was only the nurse at her desk. She stared at me with a concerned expression, her body held stiff on the edge of her chair like she wanted to bolt from the room. Same, lady. Absolute same.
“Do you know where you are, Camden?”
I took that as permission to look around some more. The nurse’s office was an open floor plan. There were two beds separated by a curtain, though it was currently drawn aside, exposing me to the whole area. I was in the one on the farthest side of the room. The other one was empty, though the sheets were rumpled as if someone else had been there. There was a closet door that was propped open, and it looked to be full of first aid supplies and linens.
“Camden?” she prompted again.
Oh. Yes. I should respond. Like a normal functioning human. Not one who had been a casualty in a hallway fight between werewolves and sprites and then had been transported to a hellish midnight meadow.
“Cam,” I corrected, voice a croaky squeak.
She nodded, then stood and crossed the room slowly, as if I were a skittish woodland creature that might dart away at any second. And maybe I was, because I could not get my fists to loosen or my spine to relax. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
She reached out to take my wrist, and I flinched. I didn’t know why, only that I didn’t want to be touched. She hesitated and then backed away.
I blinked. My head was killing me. It pounded in time with my elevated pulse. And I was so tired. If I could calm down, I definitely wouldn’t mind curling up in this bed and sleeping for approximately a week. But to be honest, I was a little freaked out, and I didn’t foresee the ability to unclench occurring anytime soon.
That girl… she’d been attacked. She’d died. What the fuck was that? Had I actually been there? Or had it been some weird hallucination brought on by my head being knocked into the lockers?
I shuddered as the picture swam across my mind’s eye. I could still see the blood and hear her helpless cries, and I really needed to stop thinking about it.
I needed Al.
“My head hurts.”
“I can give you a painkiller,” she offered, gesturing to my file on her desk. “Your parents signed off on that with your paperwork.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. My throat was dry. Had I been screaming? How long had I been there, anyway? Where was my phone?
She shook two pills from a bottle into a small paper cup and fished some water out of a mini fridge next to the closet. She placed them on the table next to me and stepped away, watching me as I choked the pain reliever down with a swig of water. She went back to sit at her desk and scribbled something in a log.
“How did I get here?” I asked.
“Danny Lopez brought you.”
My body went hot with embarrassment. I groaned and slumped onto the pillow. Danny must have been at the fight as well. Or the aftermath. “Really?”
She clicked her pen and made another note. “Have you…” She trailed off. “Has that ever happened to you before?”
“Accidentally getting flattened in a fight in the hallway? No. That’s a new one for me.” I sighed and picked at the blanket that had been tossed over my legs. I still had my shoes on. I wiggled my toes and then shifted in the bed, my damp jeans slithering unpleasantly across my skin. “Wait, I’m not in trouble, am I? I didn’t start anything. I just got caught up in it. I was an innocent bystander. I swear.”
She waved away my concern, a slight smile pulling at her lips. “You’re not in trouble. The Lopez brothers and the other kids involved all stated you were not part of the altercation.”
I blew out my breath and relaxed further onto the bed. Exhaustion had caught up with me despite my mortification at the thought of Danny carrying me through the halls like a damsel in distress. And despite the horror of… whatever it was I had seen. But thank goodness the eyewittnesses had vouched for me. I’d hate to get a detention on the first day. My parents would kill me.
“I meant—” She paused. “The other kids… they said you—”
“I passed out, right? From hitting my head?” I reached up and gingerly felt the knot on the back of my skull. It hurt. But at least it didn’t look like it had bled. “Are you going to call my parents?”
The nurse frowned. “Yes. I will be calling your parents to come get you.”
“Oh. Can you not?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Why? Do you not feel safe at home?”
“Oh! Nothing like that. Just… they’re going to be upset. And I don’t want to disturb them at work. Can I just hang out in here until the end of the school day and then go home?”
She shook her head. Her blond hair swished behind her in a high ponytail. “Sorry. Any time there is an incident, we must call the parents. It’s school policy. Especially if it involves the manifestation of abilities.”
What had I done in a past life to warrant such bad karma on the first day of my sophomore year? And why didn’t painkillers work instantly, because my brain felt too big for my skull and—
I propped myself on my elbow. “Wait, what? Abilities? What are you talking about?”
The nurse picked up my slim file and flipped through the few pages. “There’s nothing denoted in your paperwork that you’re a psychic. So I assume this is the first time it’s happened?”
I scrunched my nose. “What?”
She set down the folder and tapped her pen several times against the desk in rapid succession. She looked away and licked her lips. And—oh, she was nervous. For me? Of me?
“The other students reported that when you hit the lockers, you fell to the ground.”
Okay. Made sense. I remembered that part. Not my finest moment, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, since three huge upperclassmen had barreled into me.
“And?”
“And while you were on the ground, your eyes remained open, and you were murmuring. But it was too low for anyone to hear. Based on the description of events and eyewitness accounts, your passing out was not the result of the head injury but of a clairvoyant vision.” She ran her finger over a page in a huge book next to her elbow. “I’m not very familiar with visions. I don’t even know if that’s the modern term for it. Damn, I need to read up on current literature, because this book is practically ancient, but—”
“What?” I said weakly.
She answered, but my hearing fuzzed out.
Clairvoyant vision? That girl… that was her future? My stomach roiled. The meager amount of lunch I’d eaten burned up my throat. “I’m going to be sick.”
The nurse grabbed the wastebasket by her desk and ran across the room, shoving it into my hands.
I vomited up fries and bile and the water I’d just drunk and the two painkillers. I squeezed my eyes shut. My head felt like it was going to explode. I heaved again, my mouth burning, and clutched the wastebasket closer to my chest, needing something tangible to hold on to as my worldview completely and utterly shattered.
“I’m… going to call your parents. Be right back.”
The nurse’s shoes slapped on the floor as she darted away.
It gave me a moment to think, to process. As much as I wanted to deny the fact that I’d fallen into some kind of vision during that fight… I couldn’t. I didn’t know anything about seers or psychics or prophets or whatever term the paranormal folks used these days, but I did know that whatever I’d seen, whatever had happened in that field… felt real . I’d touched the ground under my feet and shivered at the breeze on my skin. I’d smelled the mud and the rotten eggs. I’d heard her desperate cries. I’d seen the blood. I’d held that knife.
I couldn’t ignore this .
I couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t happened.
And there was no humor to be found here. No jokes to be made.
I threw up again.