Chapter 8
Someone had to come back for the ear.
In the struggle, most of the blankets and sheets had been kicked to the floor, and the ear wound up in the tangle. Two men
held Donna against a wall while a different nurse, wearing latex gloves, came in to look for it. The nurse picked it out of
the blood-spotted sheets and held it up to the light, like a philatelist inspecting a rare stamp. His nose wrinkled at the
sight.
“Tell him I said thanks for breakfast,” Donna called. “And I’d love to have him back for lunch sometime.”
The big man with the Tom Selleck mustache—she had taken him for one of the guards, but he let the other men hold her, was
standing in the open door—laughed. Donna took note. Once you amused a guy, you were in his thoughts. He would naturally wonder
how else you might entertain him.
“You don’t seem too worried about getting gassed,” said the mustache.
Donna said, “If you’re going to poison us, let’s just get to it. Sooner or later you’ll find a reason to do it anyway.” Then
she said, “But you might want to make this room airtight before you pump in the gas. There’s a big crack under the door to
the hall.”
The big man stroked his Selleck mustache and smirked. “Aren’t you a treat? You haven’t even been here forty-eight hours and
I’m already wondering who’s holding who hostage.” He rapped his knuckles on the door to be let out.
The TV continued to broadcast the Donovan McBride show on every channel, for the rest of the afternoon.
There was nothing else to watch. At some point he got up to explore his bedroom in a desultory sort of way, and he found some clothes in a bottom drawer.
He spent twenty minutes struggling into pajama bottoms. Donna had to laugh.
It wasn’t easy to dress while wearing tight leather mittens that forced your hands into fists.
When he had finally wrestled on his PJs, he dragged out some more clothes and spent a while arranging them on the floor.
When he was done, he had arranged two socks and a T-shirt into a heart shape.
He stared forlornly at the TV. Donna looked up into the camera over the TV and rolled her eyes, then pretended she was vomiting.
The tiniest of smiles crept onto his face—her second victory of the day.
It turned out she was good at being a captive, and maybe that was no surprise.
She had spent most of her life thinking about what she would’ve done if it had been her instead of Cady in the van.
A nurse brought her lunch. Another brought her dinner. She let the lunchtime nurse spoon her alphabet soup and clean Valentine’s
blood off her face. The dinner nurse, though, was the same girl who had been in the room when Donna bit off Valentine’s ear.
“I’m Nurse Dover,” she said. “And I hope you’re not going to spit at me again.”
Donna opened her mouth to receive a spoonful of creamy pasta and, when Nurse Dover’s right hand got close, lunged and barked
like a dog. The nurse screamed and dropped the spoon. Donna cackled while she fled.
A bit before five, she saw Van sitting at the foot of his bed, holding himself, and she realized he was shivering helplessly.
Her first thought was that Valentine had begun to pump Van’s room full of the sodium pentagramwhatsis and at any moment he
was going to collapse onto his side, foam bubbling from his mouth.
But he just sat there trembling, didn’t have a convulsion, didn’t seem to be struggling for air. The next time he looked at
his own TV, Donna clutched herself, shook in an exaggerated way, and then shrugged expressively. He tipped back his head and
mimed drinking deeply from an invisible bottle. She nodded, feeling hollow in the pit of her stomach, and wondered when he
had last gone so long without a drink. She wondered how bad it was going to get for him.
Someone monitoring their security cams must not have liked seeing them speak to each other in charades, because a few minutes later, the video feed of Van’s room cut out.
The screen filled with a blizzard of static, and the TV roared with white noise—a senseless, furious blast of sound.
She turned the Zenith off. Donna hated to be bored, much preferred ruthless interrogation and the threat of torture.
There was nothing to do except think about how hungry she was.
She hugged a pillow and sucked on the corner of the pillowcase to reduce the pangs.
After a while she pulled the straight-backed chair to the picture window, pulled the curtain aside, and watched the hallway.
It was just a white hallway. People went by sometimes.
Once, a lean Black woman in tweeds stood on the other side of the glass with a cup of coffee in a paper cup and watched her for a moment, as if she were an exhibit in a zoo.
Donna glared—but the Black woman smiled as if she were adorable.
Donna stuck out her tongue. The woman in tweeds stuck her tongue out in return and left her.
She thought they’d put Van back on the TV in the morning, but they didn’t. The screen was still filled with static; the speakers
still produced their idiotic roar of sound. A male nurse brought her breakfast, the same nurse who had come back for the ear.
He was good-looking and fit, cleft chin like a comic book character, but there was something oddly unmemorable about his handsome
features. It was a face without any of the irregularity that makes a face individual.
“Go ahead and bite if you have to bite,” he said. “I’ve been bit before. I’ll probably be bit again. But if you snap at me,
the next thing you eat will be your own teeth. Do you want some oatmeal or do you want to be hungry today?”
She opened her mouth and let him spoon in oatmeal. When he leaned forward to wipe the corners of her mouth, she put her knee
against the inside of his. The man with the Tom Selleck mustache stood in the open door, arms folded across what seemed like
a yard of chest, watching intently. She was glad, wanted him to see, wanted him thinking about the possibilities.
“You’re not really my type,” the nurse said. “Sorry, I like dicks. Now, if your brother starts humping my leg, it’ll be a whole different story.”
“How long am I going to be here?” she asked.
“Dunno.”
“Where is here?”
“There’s people who are paid to talk to you. I’m paid not to.”
“What’s your name?”
“Nurse Lansing.”
She thought about it. “That’s a state capital. That nurse yesterday, she was Dover. They’re all state capitals. What’s with
the fake names?”
“You’d have to ask Mr. Valentine.”
“Christ, this isn’t a prison. It’s a fucking holiday special. I want coffee. I’d suck a dick for a coffee.”
“Everything is negotiable,” said the nurse. “Use what you got to get what you want, you know what I mean?”
“Tell you what. Bring me a coffee and my brother will suck your dick. He’s good for it.”
The nurse smiled at her. “You want a coffee, I can bring you one hell of a Colombian grind. But we need information. You ready
to work with us?”
“After yesterday, Valentine wants another date with me?”
“If you’re ready to talk,” the nurse said, “I’m sure he’ll be all ears.”
“Send him in,” Donna said. “I can fix that.”
Tom Selleck rumbled with laughter.
“Too easy,” he muttered, before he slipped away, pulling the door shut behind him.