Chapter 2 – Lily
LILY
“Give it to me straight. Am I dying?”
My best friend, Dr. Kate Ross, holds up a film to the light and squints.
Her perfectly coiffed head is cocked to the side as she purses her lips in concentration.
She flips back and forth between images of my brain while I gnaw at the edges of my nails.
I’ve been putting these tests off for months, but now that the results are here, I’m a mess.
She exhales heavily and turns to face me. “No, Lily. You’re still not dying. At least, you’re not dying any time soon. There’s nothing nefarious happening in your brain.”
My shoulders sag with relief, but the comfort is short-lived. Months of agony and worry. Months of pain and sleepless nights. And there’s nothing? A diagnosis I could deal with. A disease I could treat, but this? My heart sinks at the realization.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “Can you check again?”
She hands the MRI images back to me with a shrug.
“I’m pretty sure, Lil. I’m not a head specialist, but I can’t see anything.
No tumors, no aneurysms, no obvious structural abnormalities.
There’s a little section right here”—she points a manicured finger—"that tells me you’re not a natural blonde.
Oh, and this part right here shows you have questionable taste in shoes and men, but other than that you’re normal. Well, normal-ish."
She cackles as I drop my weary head into my hands. “Ha. Fucking. Ha. Very funny. And just because I get highlights doesn’t mean I’m not a natural blonde.”
She winks. “If you say so. Anyway, I’m telling you. It looks fine, great even. What did your neuro guy say?”
“The same thing you said,” I mumble. “But if there’s nothing there, then why am I in so much pain? It’s like someone’s hammering nails through my eye sockets. It’s only getting worse, and it’s happening every day.” My voice wobbles. “I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”
I shift uncomfortably against the stiff plastic chair and drop my head between my knees.
The dark reading room, the place we go to look at x-rays, but also where we escape to gossip, suddenly feels tiny.
It’s as if all the oxygen has been sucked out.
The low hum of machines buzzes through the silence.
Kate shuffles over and drapes an arm around me. She says she hates physical affection because she’s British, so I know she must really care about me when she offers a clumsy side hug,
She furrows her brow as hot tears well in the corners of my eyes. “Darling, have you considered this might all be stress-related? You’re dealing with a lot right now with it being your mum’s anniversary and all. When was the last time you had a break? A proper one?”
I sniff. “I don’t know, a few months? Maybe six? But…I like staying busy, y’know. I enjoy helping people, otherwise I don’t know what I’m good for.”
“I know, love,” she soothes, patting me on the back.
“And I know you believe you’re responsible for every lost and broken thing that comes your way, but you’re not.
You’re just a nurse, for Christ’s sake, not a bloody saint.
Enough’s enough, Mother Teresa. You need a vacation.
I say book a flight right now and go somewhere exotic and fall in love with a tanned cabana boy. ”
My face cracks into a reluctant smile. Typical of Kate—the British doctor who came to Texas and married a cowboy on a whim—to suggest something so reckless. She once suggested I buy a horse after a run of bad boyfriends, so this feels like familiar territory.
“I was thinking about driving down to San Antonio to see my stepdad and spend some time with him for Mom’s thing, but I don’t know if I’m up to it.
You know I love Pat, but I don’t think I currently have the emotional energy to pretend my mother was a saint whilst he feeds me endless bread. I hate turning down shifts, too.”
She fixes me with a stern look. “It’s been, what? Twenty years since she died? I think you should make the time. Not just for her, but for yourself. I say, go and chill out for a few weeks. Doctor’s orders.”
I wipe my tears with the back of my hand. “I guess. But this doesn’t feel like stress, Kate. It feels bigger. Scarier.”
I stare down at my hands, not sure if I should say the next part out loud. It feels insane even thinking about it, let alone telling someone else.
She alternates between rubbing and patting my back, as if she’s trying to burp secrets out of me. “What aren’t you telling me, Lil? This is the third time you’ve had me look at these scans. I’m starting to get worried.”
“I’ve just…” I pause. “I’ve heard things here and there.”
“Okay,” she says, pulling back to look at me. “What do you mean by ‘heard things‘?”
“Voices. Not all the time,” I add quickly, “and it’s not super clear.
It sounds more like an echo than anything.
Or a TV playing in another room. It’s probably nothing.
Like earlier with that poor guy who came off his motorcycle, the one who passed?
I could swear I heard him saying he was sorry over and over, but he was flatlining. ”
She holds a neutral face—the same one she’s honed through years of delivering bad news. “Uh-huh. Okay. Anything else?”
I suck in a deep breath. “I’ve seen things too. Outlines of people, shadows.” I lift my eyes to study her face, which is getting steadily more serious.
“Hm.”
“It’s fine,” I babble. “I’ll be fine.”
I stare down at my feet as a deep silence descends across the tiny reading room. Kate’s thinking loudly. Too loudly. I can hear the gears turning, and I already know she’s getting ready to give me a dose of tough love.
“Right. Here’s what we’re going to do,” she says finally, her posh accent getting more pronounced the way it does when she’s in full doctor mode. “You’re going to see a specialist. I’m going to ask around and get a recommendation. Make sure you only get the best, no quacks.”
“Kate, I really don’t think—”
“Lily, I know you want to minimize this, but I think it’s time we tried something new.” She stands up and smooths a nonexistent wrinkle from her immaculate white coat. “In the meantime, will you promise me you’ll take a few days off? Just to see if there’s any improvement?”
Before I can argue against a vacation, her beeper buzzes, and she exclaims, “Bollocks!”
For the first time in my life, I’m grateful for a pager interruption. I get up too, but before I can leave, Kate catches my arm.
“Lilian Ivy Vervain. Look me in the eye and promise me you’ll take a bloody break.”
Shit. She invoked the magic word. She knows my policy on promises.
I sigh. “Fine. I promise.”
Room 7 is chaos. The girl on the gurney can’t be more than nineteen, but she looks like she’s been dead for weeks.
Her skin has this awful grayish pallor that makes me think of pulped newspaper, and it hangs awkwardly off her bones.
My heart breaks a little as I move a strand of her stringy, sweat-soaked hair from her face.
“What’s her story?” I ask Dr. Chen as I check her vitals.
“Brought in by friends about an hour ago. Said she collapsed at some party in East Austin. Blood work shows severe anemia—her iron levels are practically nonexistent. Hemoglobin’s down to 8.2.”
I frown, looking at the girl’s arms. Track marks, standard, but also a load of mystery marks. Tiny puncture wounds along her inner thighs, faded but still visible. They’re perfectly round, too clean to be from needles. They look almost like…bite marks.
But it’s something else that makes my blood run cold.
There, on her left shoulder blade, partially hidden by the hospital gown—a small tattoo of a stylized “6” with gothic flourishes around the edges.
The same mark my mother had in the exact same spot.
The one I’d only seen a handful of times when she was getting dressed, back when I was little.
I lean closer, my hands trembling as I gently move the fabric aside to get a better look. It’s identical. Down to the ornate curves and the way the number seems to twist into itself. What are the odds?
“Any idea what she was using?” I ask, finding her pulse fluttering beneath her skin, trying to keep my voice steady.
“My gut says fent, but we’re still waiting for the tox screen. Whatever cocktail she was on, it’s nasty stuff. You see these weird marks—”
“I see them,” I say as I start another IV, and the girl’s eyes flicker open. They’re almost black, pupils so wide they fill her eyes completely. An endless pit of darkness pooling behind her lids.
She looks so empty it’s terrifying.
“Where am I?” she croaks, her voice barely audible.
“You’re at the hospital, sweetheart. You’re safe.” I squeeze her hand gently to show her I’m right here. “I’m Nurse Lily. What’s your name?”
“Amber.” She tries to sit up, then immediately slumps back down. “I need… I need to get ready. They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming, hon?”
But she’s already gone, pulled back under the waves of whatever high she’s riding. Lost and floating somewhere in the void.
I’ve been seeing more cases like this lately.
Kids coming in with severe anemia, weird puncture wounds, talking like they’re on the run.
Always the same color, same empty look in their eyes.
The fentanyl epidemic is bad enough without whatever new shit is hitting the streets. We’re barely keeping up.
“Should I get the blood transfusion started?” I ask Dr Chen.
“Yeah. Two units to begin with. And find out if we can call someone to come down. She’s got to have a family somewhere. Maybe they can get her into a treatment program.”