Chapter 16 #2
“Lucy,” Tean said, “wait, please. We need to talk to you too. Have the police told you what we found?”
“Did they tell you I saved your kid’s life?” Jem added sourly.
Lucy clutched the call button. But she didn’t press it. Color spread in her cheeks like red wings. Finally, she said, “Daniel, I’m going to be right back.”
Daniel didn’t look over. He didn’t raise his head. He didn’t blink.
Out in the hall, when the door swung shut behind Lucy, Tean said, “Is he okay? Last night, they weren’t sure—”
“He’s fine. He’ll be fine. They were worried about his brain, but everything—” Lucy stopped so suddenly it was jarring, like someone pressing pause on an old VHS.
Around them, the hospital traffic continued: a radio playing a pop song Tean didn’t recognize, a man clearing away a tray of uneaten food, a nurse shaking out the last Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Lucy pressed one hand to her cheek as though checking for a fever, and then she turned to Jem and said, “Thank you.”
“I know he’s been through a lot,” Tean said. “We’re not trying to make things harder.”
Lucy stood there, hand still pressed to her cheek. Whatever guard she’d maintained while she’d been with her child, it was gone now, and bone-white exhaustion peeked out at them.
“Have the police talked to you about what we found?” Tean said. “There’s substantial evidence that Ammon didn’t have anything to do with this.”
She gave a weary shake of her head. “No. I don’t know. Last night, they wanted to talk—I have no idea what they were saying.”
“Has Daniel told you what he was doing last night?” Jem asked.
“Daniel isn’t talking to anyone right now.”
“Do you know how he got Brennon’s phone?”
Pain pinched Lucy’s expression. “I appreciate that you’re trying to help.
That you think you’re trying to help. And I know Ammon believes—” She stopped, and a laugh wrenched its way out of her.
“I have no idea what Ammon believes. I don’t know what’s going on.
Thank you for what you did last night for my son. But I just—I just need—”
A klaxon sounded. Lights flashed.
Tean flinched. Jem swore. Lucy put a hand over her ear. And then a recorded voice came over the speakers: “This is a fire alarm. Please evacuate. This is a fire alarm. Please evacuate.”
A patient tech in scrubs poked his head out of a nearby room and glanced up and down the hall. At the nurse’s station, a Polynesian woman waved one hand and shouted, “Let’s go!” From nearby rooms came raised voices, cries for help, the blat of emergency calls as people panicked.
Through the din, a soft, hissing sound registered. It was coming from inside Daniel’s room. Jem must have heard it too, because as the klaxon and flashing lights began again, his eyes narrowed.
“Lucy—” Tean tried over the sound of the alarm.
Before he could finish, the door to Daniel’s room flew open, and Daniel charged out.
The boy was dripping wet, shorts and tee pasted to his skin.
Without missing a beat, he shoved his mom into Jem, and the two of them crashed to the floor—Jem landing hard enough to tumble several feet across the linoleum, Lucy letting out a sharp cry as she tried to catch herself with one arm.
Which left Tean alone on his feet.
Daniel shot him a backward glance.
Tean took off after him.
As he ran, the chaos of the fire alarm built in slow motion.
A man in scrubs backed out of a hospital room, and Tean swerved to avoid a collision.
A gurney lurched into Tean’s path at the next intersection, and he had to hit the brakes, the soles of the Keens squeaking against the linoleum.
A woman on a walker hailed him with a raised hand, calling a question over the blare of the alarm.
“Someone’s coming for you,” Tean shouted over his shoulder.
It wasn’t a real fire—at least, he didn’t think it was a real fire—but he wasn’t sure, at this point, that it made a difference. People died in evacuations all the time—from falls, or trampled, or maybe worst of all, asphyxiated by the mass of bodies that didn’t give them room to breathe.
Ahead, Daniel’s slim form darted between patients and staff, slowly widening his lead.
With a grimace, Tean turned up the speed.
He wasn’t much of a runner, but he was a hiker, and years of long walks over difficult terrain had layered him with solid, if rangy, muscle.
He was an adult—technically, if Jem was to be believed, in the prime of his life—while Daniel was still a teenager.
And although teenagers did have what seemed like limitless energy, their bodies were still developing, muscles still being built.
Past a room where a man sat upright in bed, clutching a hairpiece and looking around confusedly.
Past a nurse who had fallen—been pushed, part of Tean’s brain wondered—and lay in a pile of paperwork.
Past a young mother who huddled with two small children, her arms wrapped protectively around them.
He cut the corner at the end of the hall in time to see the door to an emergency stairwell swinging shut.
Cold, exposed concrete met him, in contrast to the creams and beiges of the finished hospital interior. A few people trickled down the stairs, but not enough to hide Daniel, who pounded down the steps, already close to the landing below.
As fast as Tean was going, he was going to trip. The Keens seemed too big for the treads, and his brain tried to calculate what was going to happen when he finally lost his footing. He kept one hand on the rail, and overlapping coats of paint skimmed beneath his palm.
“Tean!”
The shout came from above—Jem, hair falling out of its part, peered down the stairwell before starting down the steps two at a time.
“Be careful!” Tean shouted back, which was probably not what you were supposed to do when you were in a high-speed chase, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Slow down!” an older, heavyset man with motorcycle boots shouted. He had one arm around a much smaller woman, pulling her out of the path.
“I’m sorry!” Tean called as he passed them.
“There are people here!” he shouted.
Jem’s answer was to shout, “Whee!” The vocalization was followed by a chiming sound that Tean suspected came from the handrail, followed by the thud of a landing.
“Oh shit,” Jem said, but he was laughing, and the voice was much closer now. “Tean, did you see that?”
“No,” Tean gasped. A stitch pulled in his side, and all the blood seemed to have rushed out of his head.
He reached the bottom of the stairs. The door ahead of him was still halfway open. Cold air rushed in.
“I slid down the rail,” Jem said as he sprinted past Tean. “It was awesome!”
Tean had no idea how the younger—much younger man, apparently—was managing to talk so much and also run faster than him. His half-cohered thought was approximately: All that stupid McDonald’s.
A heartbeat later, he emerged from the stairwell and into the parking garage.
Brakes screeched. Footsteps echoed. A man shouted, “Over here! Over here!” Engines came to life like a herd of wildebeests raising their heads.
People were streaming toward vehicles as they evacuated the hospital, but for a moment, Tean couldn’t find Jem.
There.
The blond man wasn’t moving down the main section of the parking garage; instead, he’d exited by the closest pedestrian path, and he was disappearing outside.
Tean started to run again. His legs were heavier now, and no matter how much he focused on breathing deeply, he couldn’t seem to get enough air.
As he exited through the pedestrian path, the honking horns, the squealing tires, the slamming car doors—they all faded behind him.
He found himself on a narrow patch of lawn framed on three sides by structures: the parking garage on one, and the hospital on two others.
The remaining side was open to what appeared to be some sort of service drive, which was empty of traffic.
For the moment, the only other people in sight were Jem and Daniel, ten feet ahead of Tean.
“Hey!” Jem said as he grabbed Daniel by the shoulder.
Daniel spun toward Jem, bringing his hand up and toward Jem’s face.
Jem moved so quickly that he was a blur.
He caught Daniel’s hand and moved with the blow, pivoting with Daniel’s force and momentum rather than trying to fight it.
The result was that a moment later, he had Daniel’s arm locked under his own, and Daniel screamed.
“Drop it!” Jem barked.
Daniel’s hand opened, and whatever he’d held clattered against the pavement. Jem relaxed the hold, and Daniel’s scream cut off. The boy wobbled for a moment, face white. And then he bit Jem on the shoulder.
This time, Jem was the one who screamed. Instinct kicked in, and he released Daniel. The boy twisted free, already turning to run, but he stepped backward off a curb and fell.
By then, Tean was finally moving again. He reached Daniel as the boy began to push himself up.
“Daniel, stop.” Tean gulped air, but he pressed one Keen down on the boy’s midsection, pinning him to the ground. “Enough.”
For a single moment, Daniel’s face contorted, and Tean was sure the boy was going to keep fighting. And then something deeper than exhaustion scoured away everything else in that pale face, and he dropped back against the blacktop, panting like he was trying not to cry.