Chapter 30
The emergency room entrance is a blur of flashing lights, movement, and shouting.
Ambulances are parked at skewed angles, gurneys are overturned.
And, perhaps most ominously of all, dozens and dozens of crows are perched silently, waiting, on the roof overhang.
So many of them that the ledge shimmers with their blackness, like oil glimmering on water.
When the sliding glass doors pull back to admit me, I find only more chaos inside.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, she just dropped. Please, someone help us!”
“I can’t get a pulse!”
People lie sprawled all over the floor, some of them in scrubs, others in regular clothes. Dead. Others are crouching next to them, frantically pounding on unmoving chests and puffing air into slack mouths. Clearly, this is where Nova entered.
I move deeper into the waiting room, where a nurse in Snoopy scrubs is attaching defibrillator pads to a man’s chest. His fingertips are translucent. Nova must have pulled hard on him.
I follow the trail of bodies to the swinging doors that lead into the actual emergency department. No one even tries to stop or question me when I push through the doors.
It’s more of the same back here. Frantic voices, people rushing around, bodies on the floor, including a security guard.
“Chessa?” I shout.
But there’s no response.
Nova wouldn’t kill her. She wouldn’t. Chessa is leverage. Nova is smarter than that. That’s what I keep telling myself.
Smarter, yes. Also about a whole box of fries short of the proverbial Happy Meal, too.
I keep moving.
Then, one of the pale blue divider curtains—about halfway down the aisle—is drawn back roughly, metal hooks clinking.
I whip around to see Detective Morales. She lowers her hand from the fabric curtain to continue pumping ineffectively on a young woman’s chest.
“What the fuck is this, Trelane?” Detective Morales demands, thin lines of horror and disbelief sharp in her voice. “That girl from before? She walked through here, like Typhoid Mary. Blood all over her clothes, and people dropping left and right.”
Morales pauses long enough to bend over the patient—a student, based on the Beecher-themed scrunchie securing her dark hair in a messy bun and the backpack resting next to her wrapped ankle—and give rescue breaths.
I hurry toward her. “Where?” I ask. “Which way did she go?” I don’t have time to explain, or, for that matter, come up with an explanation she might believe.
Resuming chest compressions, Morales stares at me for a long moment over the patient, evaluating me. “You know what this is, don’t you.”
It’s not a question. But I answer anyway. “Yes, and if you want me to stop it, I need to know where she is.”
Morales sucks her teeth and shakes her head. “I knew there was something off about you. I knew it.”
She was right, just not in the way she thought.
“Never mind.” I start forward, past Morales.
She lifts her hand, jerking her thumb over her shoulder, indicating a set of doors on the other end of the emergency room.
“The elevator, through there. She took your friend. I couldn’t…
” She pauses with chagrin. “I didn’t put it together fast enough to stop them, and then I couldn’t leave.
” She gestures to the girl on the bed. “But backup is coming.”
Backup that is more than likely going to be way too late and utterly outmatched.
I nod and keep going.
“You owe me an explanation, Trelane,” Morales calls after me. “Don’t think I’m going to forget it.”
Well, there’s a silver lining. If Nova kills me, I won’t have to have that conversation.
On the other side of the doors, I find the elevators, just as Morales said. A hospital directory hangs on the wall just above the buttons for UP and DOWN.
ICU is on the third floor. Something called the birthing center is on the second.
I press the UP button and wait for the elevator to arrive. Stairs might be faster, but I don’t know where they are and I don’t want to waste time looking for them.
Nova might know about Daan. Might have taken Chessa to his room in the ICU to provide additional “motivation” for me to come, to cooperate. I could see that. He’s my friend, surrounded by rooms full of other fragile humans, near death. Easy pickings for someone like her.
But on the other hand, the birthing center, which presumably includes a nursery full of helpless newborns …
I grimace. If I fuck this up, go to the wrong place, more people will probably die before I can get to the right place.
If I were Nova, impatient, a little crazy, and overly dramatic, what would I do?
When the elevator arrives, I step in—over another body in blue scrubs—and make my choice, pressing the button for the appropriate floor. Please let this be right.
After a few seconds, the elevator glides to a halt, the doors roll back, and I’m greeted with a view of a similar corridor.
Only this one contains oversized black-and-white images of baby hands.
Curled around adult fingers, gripped into tight fists, or with an index finger reaching out, like God in the Sistine Chapel.
Metal letters on the wall welcome me to the Birthing Center.
And in the distance somewhere, likely behind the double doors to my left, a baby is crying.
New life, the antithesis of Death. Plus, humans are innately driven to protect offspring. Something about the big eyes, floppy heads, and vulnerability. Same thing for puppies, kittens, whatever.
In short, threatening babies is more likely to get Nova what she wants quickly and she probably knows it.
At least, that’s my gamble. It’s what I would do if I were her. In fact, it feels almost inevitable, as if I’m being drawn to that location.
I push through the set of double doors, ignoring the alert that sounds at my entrance.
Just inside, a nurses’ station is on the left. A plastic sign holder on the top of it, asking people to sign in, is tipped over on its side, next to a clipboard. Messages and warnings flash on the computer screens, and call buttons are going off unattended. The station is abandoned … or not.
On the floor, an arm stretches out from behind the corner of the desk, hand still outstretched. Someone trying to run. Or stop Nova.
Because Nova’s there. Waiting in front of the desk, pacing a step or two in either direction.
Relief mixed with dread fills me. I guessed correctly. Nova and I are more alike than I would like to admit.
She stops pacing and smiles when she sees me. Her clothes are still soaked in blood, but now it’s darker, drying. She looks like a final girl out of a seventies-era slasher film. She’s so small and non-threatening, barely over five feet tall. Somehow, though, that makes her even more frightening.
Off to one side, Chessa is in a desk chair with wheels, her face ashen and her injured arm pressed against her side. Her fingers have swollen and turned an alarming shade of dark purple. Shit.
But she’s still alive.
Down the hall behind Nova, the sounds of muffled crying drift toward me.
Babies, yes, but also new mothers, if I had to guess.
How horrible to have brought new life into this world, only to be immediately confronted by the possibility of its loss.
An empty bassinet, made of clear plastic, has been abandoned in the middle of the corridor.
All the patient room doors are shut—and locked, I hope. If hospital doors lock, I don’t even know. It probably doesn’t matter—it would only slow her down a little. If at all. Pulling life through a door would be no issue for someone who managed to tunnel through the ground to kill.
“I guess you were right,” Nova says to Chessa, with mild surprise. “That was much faster than killing everyone and waiting for her to notice.”
“This bitch,” Chessa mutters, rolling her eyes. But she’s smart enough to keep her voice down. Her chin is trembling; beneath the bravado, she’s terrified. But she’s not going to let Nova see that. God, I love her.
Please don’t let me fuck this up.
“Hi Jo.” Nova beams at me. “Thanks for coming.”
I close the distance between us slowly, watching Nova with wariness. “Could have gotten here faster if you’d told me the plan.” I’m not sure why she’s not attacking right away. What is she waiting for?
Her expression hardens. “Oh, no. I think that might not have worked out as well for me.” She gestures at her bloodied clothes. “Where’s your boyfriend? We didn’t really have a chance to chat.”
Interesting. She’s afraid of Carter. Or maybe that’s too strong a word. She’s concerned. Still. A good sign. Assuming Devon can get here in time with him.
Assuming he will come. I am not letting myself contemplate the alternative.
Nova pauses, a nasty gleam in her eyes. “Or is it boyfriends? Lust boy was awfully quick to get on his knees for you.”
I stare at her. That’s what she wants to talk about? “Are you … jealous?” I can’t keep myself from asking, disbelief ringing out.
Nova narrows her eyes at me, her cheeks flushing pink. “You know in my day, we had a word for girls like you.”
Oh, lovely. Antique internalized misogyny. “Lucky?” I offer innocently. Fuck her and her outdated standards. She’s wrong, of course, and my love life is none of her business, but whatever keeps her talking. I’ll make up scenarios so steamy and tangled up, she’ll bust a vein in her forehead.
I shift so I’m blocking Nova’s view of Chessa. Tucking one hand behind my back, I flick my fingers at her in a gesture that I hope she understands. Go. Get out of here.
Seething, Nova charges forward into my space. But I hold my ground. Behind me, I hear the gentle whir of plastic wheels on the tile floor. Chessa’s putting distance between us without drawing attention to herself by running. Good. Smart.
“Why?” Nova snarls. “Why did he choose you?”
I’m confused. “Who, Devon?”
Nova laughs, but it’s a harsh, ugly sound. “Weak and stupid, too. No!” she snaps. “Death.”
Ah. So it is jealousy, but more akin to sibling rivalry. I can work with that.