Chapter 25
We kept vigil in the waiting room of the hospital.
They gave us just two updates throughout the night—one to tell us Shiloh was alive, and then a second, hours later, to let us know she was stable.
The rest we gathered from conjecture. I knew from past experiences with Adeline that hospitals tended to keep you for some time when they had reason to believe you were a threat to yourself.
Most likely, Shiloh would be transferred to some psych ward for further observation and care.
I didn’t know what that meant for us or our deal with Death.
But I had a bad feeling. We knew that Death still expected us to choose someone.
He was strict that way, unrelenting. Skye’s drowning, as horrible as it was, was just a warning shot really.
But we still needed to fulfill our task—our most terrible and important dispatch—by killing one of our own.
Death was near. I could feel it in the bathroom when I forced my fingers down Shiloh’s throat, made her bring up the pills she’d swallowed down.
I could feel it when I got in the ambulance with her, and we all rode to the Palm Springs hospital.
I felt it in the waiting room too. A kind of certainty that this journey we’d been on with Death was nearing its end.
At daybreak, when most of the girls were eating breakfast in the cafeteria, one of the nurses ducked into the waiting room to tell us that Shiloh was awake and ready to take visitors.
Riley, still bitter from the fight the day before, deferred to me.
I got up stiffly and followed the nurse back into the ward, feeling like the last person that should be by her side.
I had barely looked her in the eye since I found Adeline’s phone, unable to wrap my mind around the betrayal or even be near her without feeling like I was coming undone.
As I walked to her hospital room, trailing the nurse, I didn’t know how to comfort her, or if I even could.
Shiloh was sitting upright in bed when I entered, and when she gazed up at me, I saw her as I had that first night we’d met across the pool as if dragged back through time. I’d known then, from that first moment, that she had the power to break me if she’d wanted to. And now here we were.
I came to stand by the bed. Shiloh’s wrists weren’t cuffed to the guardrails, but I noticed that there was a nurse in the room, sitting in a chair by the bathroom.
“You can go now,” said Shiloh, nodding to her.
The nurse frowned but got up anyway, told me to ring for her before I left the room.
In her absence, Shiloh was quiet for a long time, like she was expecting me to speak. But I didn’t have anything to say to her. It felt like all my words were spent. I had nothing else to give except my presence there by her bed.
“They’re trying to keep me,” she said at last, peering at me, tentative almost, every word a careful test like she was afraid, if she said the wrong thing, she’d chase me off.
“Why did you do it?”
“I had to. If I didn’t, if I don’t, it’ll be one of you guys. Death took Skye already. I’m not going to watch you be plucked off one by one until there’s no one left. It’s my responsibility to end this.”
“You were overdosing. You were going to die, Shiloh—”
“I don’t think he would’ve allowed that.
He wants me, maybe even needs me. I thought I could force his hand.
If I’d died, I’d have fulfilled his demand even if he brought me back.
But if he called my bluff and I did die as a result, then at least you all would’ve been safe.
I would’ve protected you the way I should have Skye.
” Her voice cracked. She scrubbed at her eyes before the tears could fall.
In another life, one less cruel than this one, I would’ve taken her hand.
I would’ve cradled her face, brushed her tears away.
I would’ve told her that I was less afraid of Death than I was of losing her.
But I knew that Shiloh wasn’t mine to keep.
That whatever existed between us was less than love…
It had to be, because if this was love, why did it hurt so much?
I swallowed my own tears, drew a hand through my hair.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had been this tired.
“You can’t just strike out on your own without telling anyone, all right?
We’re a group. A family. And last night, you turned your back on all of that.
For too long you’ve been icing people out, doing things on your own.
Keeping me in the dark, especially. That whole thing with Adeline and you and me.
You should’ve told me, Shiloh. Why didn’t you say something?
” I could barely get the words out, my throat so tight and swollen with the tears I was holding back.
“I didn’t want you to have to carry it,” said Shiloh, looking sick with herself. “I thought you were dealing with enough. I didn’t want to add guilt to the mix. I don’t think that Adeline would’ve wanted that either. I mean, if she had, she would’ve told you before she died—”
“Adeline doesn’t get to decide what I can handle, and neither do you.
You know, I’m not half as weak as either of you think I am.
I already lost the person I loved most in the world.
Do you think that anything else could break me?
I watched them carry my sister’s corpse out of the woods, rotting in that body bag.
Then I went to the morgue and—” I cut myself short.
“I saw it all, and it wasn’t enough, because I still don’t know what happened to her that night in the woods.
I need the truth so I can finally let go of this. I feel like I’ve earned it.”
“You have,” said Shiloh. “You deserve better.”
I knew she was talking about more than just Adeline and Death.
A nurse stepped into the room then, clutching a clipboard to her chest. “Shiloh, your father is here. Should I show him up?”
“My…father—” Shiloh’s eyes flashed wide with horror.
I sprang to my feet, shouldered past the nurse and into the hall even as Shiloh called me back. I pressed the elevator button, but there was no cabin, so I took the stairs down to the first floor, taking the steps three or even four at a time, tripping over the tops of my own sneakers.
I burst into the waiting room, but he wasn’t there.
In fact, none of the girls were, and the sight of those empty chairs seized me with panic.
I backtracked so fast I almost fell, pushed down the hall, and went to the cafeteria.
But a quick scan of the mostly empty tables was enough for me to confirm that the girls weren’t there either.
I turned back, began to retrace my steps, when I saw him standing at the end of that empty ward.
“How about we have a chat?”