Chapter 25
That night, I go to the edge of the warded area and call out to Rhea and the girls, but I get no answer.
I try again later, and then again at different hours, telling myself they might need time to think it through.
Maybe they will circle back once the anger cools, crows and all, still trying to haunt us, just from a slightly safer distance.
It never happens.
It is as if they gave up completely and decided to let us go.
I wish I could say it feels good. It doesn’t. It makes me nauseous with guilt. I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going through their heads. All I know is that it’s a lot of bad.
So when I come back to the hospital for the fourth time in a row, turning the whole thing over in my mind and wondering if I did the right thing by acting first and hoping to talk second, I find Hailey and Lila in the main hangout area.
They’re standing shoulder to shoulder at the kitchenette, rummaging through the dry supplies.
The moment they notice me, they turn, and an awkward quiet settles in.
“Oh, hey…” Hailey says. “No luck again?”
Lila pauses with her hands inside a cabinet, then slowly pulls them back. She braces herself against the countertop behind her, and her gaze flicks from Hailey to me and back again, like she’s weighing whether she should say anything at all.
I rake a hand through my hair. “Why would you say that?”
I never told them what happened between me and the Grim Reaper girls. I never told them I’ve been slipping out of the hospital just to stand at the treeline and call into the woods, hoping they’ll come back and talk to me.
“We saw you through our window,” Hailey says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You keep trying to do something out there, but we don’t know what.”
“But we hope you succeed anyway,” Lila adds, her voice quiet.
It’s sweet. It really is. I just don’t know if I can pull them into this.
Telling them about the wraith and me was one thing, but Rhea’s story feels like something that was placed in my hands.
I don’t want to betray it. I already feel awful for how I must have looked to her after she helped my guys reunite with me.
“Thanks,” I say. “But honestly, I don’t even know if I want to succeed anymore.” I nod toward the cabinets. “What are you looking for?”
I step closer and glance into the open one. Flour and sugar stare back at me, along with the last few small packets of salt that didn’t go into the wards.
“Snacks,” Hailey answers. “We wanted something to snack on while we…”
“While you what?”
“While we watch a movie,” she says, and the rest comes out softer, like she doesn’t really want to admit it. “Talon gave us a DVD player, one of the ones that doesn’t connect to the internet, and a wall projector. We thought we might snack on something while we watch.”
Lila looks at me. “Would you like to watch with us?”
The question catches me off guard. When was the last time I watched a movie, let alone got asked to watch one with someone?
My first instinct is to say no, not because I don’t want to, but because it feels strangely intimidating, like I won’t know what to do with something that normal. Then I stop myself.
Aren’t they the same, the two of them? They were locked away from a normal life too, and yet here they are, trying so hard to carve out something decent anyway. Trying to find a little nice in the middle of all this.
Maybe I should take note of that.
“Um, yeah,” I manage. “Sure. Why not?”
I open the cabinet farthest to the left and pull out popcorn and a couple bags of candy Talon stashes there, hidden from Cassian. You’d never guess it, but the soldier is a serious snacker.
I barely register it when the girls trade a look, like they’re holding back a laugh, and I tell myself it’s just excitement.
“What are we going to watch?” I ask as we head toward the ICU side of the hospital.
“We don’t know yet,” Hailey says. “Talon gave us a lot to choose from. Maybe you can help us pick?”
Fine with me, or at least I think it is. That confidence lasts right up until I am sitting on the bed in Hailey’s room with a stack of DVDs spread out in front of me, and it becomes painfully obvious that no matter what I suggest, the girls somehow do not want to watch it.
I have never seen two people this picky about a movie in my life.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s not like if you pick something, then you’re banned from the others. If that’s what you want, I’m sure Talon will let you have the projector whenever you want.”
By the time they finally make a choice, I have been trying to convince them for at least an hour.
They land on something with a dramatic cover: a dark hallway, a pale face half-hidden behind a doorframe, and a title in an aggressively serious font.
“This one,” Hailey says, a little too fast.
Lila nods. “Yes. That one.”
I turn it over and scan the back. “This is a haunted asylum movie.”
“It’s atmospheric,” Hailey insists, already sliding the DVD into the player, like if she pauses for even a second I’ll shut it down.
I don’t. I’m trying very hard to be normal about things, and this is apparently what normal people do. They watch terrible horror movies in a hospital room, with a projector aimed at a blank wall that used to be covered in medical posters.
The lights go off, and we dive in.
Five minutes in, the movie is exactly what I expected. Too much fog, too many long shots of empty corridors, and a soundtrack that’s basically a violin having a nervous breakdown.
Ten minutes in, Lila makes a small sound. Barely a squeak, but her whole body jerks like something touched her. She clamps a hand over her mouth, eyes huge, and then looks at me like she’s been caught doing something humiliating.
“It’s fine,” I whisper, because I don’t know what else to do.
She nods, rigid as a board. Then the movie does that thing where it goes quiet just to make the next sound feel like a slap.
A metal tray clatters on screen, and Lila launches. Hailey has to catch her by the elbow or they both would’ve ended up on the floor.
Yeah, no. A freaking horror movie is not the right pick for someone who was nearly murdered.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my voice calm. “How about we change the movie to something else?”
They both agree, and this time they choose the safest-looking thing in the pile: a soft, warm cover with cartoonish art and a title that promises sunshine and a predictable plot.
I am surprised the guys even own something like that, but I am not about to complain.
The second it starts, the room changes. The soundtrack goes gentle.
People in bright clothing smile at each other.
The jokes are visible from a mile away. Lila exhales so hard it sounds like she has been holding her breath for an hour.
“Better?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says immediately. Then she pauses and adds more quietly, “Sorry.”
“Chill. You don’t have to apologize for being jumpy,” I tell her. “That movie sucked ass.”
Hailey makes a sound that’s almost a laugh and almost not, like it gets strangled on the way out. She shoves a handful of popcorn into her mouth, like that’ll keep it from happening again, and I make a point of not reacting.
It works for maybe fifteen minutes.
Then something stupid and harmless happens onscreen, a character pulling a ridiculous face, and Hailey snorts.
It’s quick and sharp, the kind of sound you don’t choose and can’t swallow back in time.
Lila clamps her hand over her mouth again, eyes wide, and suddenly they’re both doing it, the same weird, smothered giggle that never fully turns into laughter.
It just sticks in their throats, like back on the ground floor.
What the hell?
They look at each other. They look away. They look at me like I’m going to… I don’t know. Accuse them of something.
“What?” I ask, genuinely lost.
“Nothing,” Hailey says.
Lila shakes her head, still covering her mouth, eyes glossy with the effort of not laughing. “It’s just…”
“Just what?” I press.
They exchange another look.
“Are you laughing at me?” I ask, half joking, half not.
Hailey’s face goes bright. “No.”
Lila’s eyes dart away. “No, never.”
And then Hailey laughs again, and Lila follows like it’s contagious.
My confusion twists into something close to irritation. “Okay, seriously. What is happening?”
Hailey wipes at her eyes like she’s tearing up, but the room’s too dim to tell if it’s laughter or something else. “Nothing is happening,” she insists.
It’s ridiculous. It’s harmless. It should feel light. But I can’t shake the sense that I’m missing a piece of the puzzle, like there’s a joke happening just out of reach and I’m the only one not in on it.
Whatever. Let them have a little fun, even if it’s at my expense. It doesn’t really matter anyway.
We finish the movie. There’s a tidy ending, everyone learns something, the music swells, and the credits roll. When the screen goes dark, I find myself weirdly eager to leave. Hailey leans forward and turns the projector off, and for a second none of us move.
Then I shift, bracing my hands on the mattress as I get ready to stand, because that is what you do when something ends. You get up and you go back to your life. Maybe I can check the edge of the woods again. Maybe the Grims came back.
Hailey speaks before I can move.
“You can stay,” she says.
Lila nods. “If you want.”
I hesitate, my fingers still pressed into the bedding. “It’s late.”
“So?” Hailey shrugs, but her eyes don’t match it. They’re too intent, too hopeful, like she’s holding her breath for my answer.
I don’t know what to say. It’s a little weird for my liking, but maybe I haven’t had friends in so long that I’m being extra picky. I search for something gentle to say, something that will let them down easy, when a knock sounds from the corridor.
Hailey’s eyes go wide. Lila’s hand flies to her mouth again, and before I can even process it, there’s that giggle again.