Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Frankie
I bolted awake, hands thrown wide as if protecting myself from falling debris. My chest rose and fell in heaving breaths as I blinked away the dream and reality started to come back to my sleep-addled brain. The roof wasn’t falling in on me. I was safe. My eyes took in the unfamiliar shadows of the room. All at once, I remembered I was in Finch's apartment, in her guest bedroom, with no roof caving in.
I let out a long, slow breath, trying to calm my nerves, when I heard another distant clatter of metal on a tiled floor.
I strained my ears to listen. It was probably Finch up for one of her nighttime feedings of that baby macaw. Maybe she’d dropped a bowl. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a burglar? Or worse, a loose tiger or something? What if Jailbreak finally figured out how to leap the visitor railing and there was a zebra wandering the halls of the vet hospital?
I knew I wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep until I investigated the source of the sound.
Throwing the duvet off me, I padded barefoot across the room. The space was easy to navigate in the dark since it was so sparse, with only a spare bed and a nightstand in the room. My suitcase lay open on the floor with stacks of clothes and toiletries mounded on either side. Finch had said she would get me a dresser, and I’d told her not to worry about it, that I'd be out of her hair in no time. But now that we were pretending to live together, would it be weird if I moved out again? Did I even want to? I supposed if anyone came over, I'd have to quickly move all my stuff into her bedroom across the hall, otherwise they'd suspect something was up. This snow-balling secret was getting hard to keep up with.
The sound of another clatter came from the distance, and I pulled a hoodie on over my tank top and baggy sleep shorts, letting it fall to the top of my thighs.
"Finch?" I called, opening my door and peeking a head out. I turned on my phone flashlight and swept the beam up and down the hall. Feeling like a member of a SWAT team, I kept my back to the wall and flashlight held high as I traversed the hallway to Finch’s door.
I gently rapped on the freshly painted wood and opened it, only to find Finch fast asleep, mouth agape and arms curled around a pillow as if holding someone in her sleep. I smiled at her shadowed figure and tiptoed backwards, slowly shutting her door.
The sweetness of her sleeping was quickly replaced by a terrifying question: if she wasn't the one making the noise, then who was?
I turned to the kitchen, then the bathroom, inspecting the rest of the apartment. Another clatter rang up the stairwell, and I realized the sound was coming from the hospital below.
I turned my phone flashlight to the front door and crept silently down—which was no small feat in an echoey, tiled hallway with no soft furnishings to dampen the sound. There was no dim lighting in the vet hospital either, and I knew if I turned the bright fluorescent lights on, all the animal patients would probably think it was morning and expect food. That was the last thing Finch needed. As I passed through the darkness, I checked Finch’s schedule on the whiteboard in the hallway. She'd be up in half an hour to feed the chick again. I couldn’t wake her.
Something caught my eye in the shadows, sliding across the floor, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Every horror movie that had been permanently branded into the ridges of my brain flashed through my mind in rapid succession.
Don’t be ridiculous, Frankie. It’s probably just a cute, escaped baby monkey or something, the sensible part of my brain thought. But the louder part of my brain screamed, Or it could be a hell beast sent to disembowel you! Run for your life!
Another clatter made my blood run cold, followed by the sound of scratching that made bile rise up my throat.
“Finch better kiss my freaking ass for this,” I whispered as I followed the trail of overturned bowls and baskets.
My heart slammed into my sternum with every step. I grabbed a pair of suture scissors off the drying rack and held them aloft as I kept walking. It was the least practical weapon I could’ve selected. What was I going to do, suture the burglar to death?
I turned the corner, scissors raised, ready to attack, when I saw the culprit: a tortoise slipping and sliding across the tiles.
"Oh shit," I said, dropping the scissors and giving chase. "Stop!”
The rebellious leopard tortoise must've escaped his carrier and decided to go gallivanting around the closed hospital in search of midnight snacks. I thought for a second about waking up Finch to catch him, but she already was so sleep-deprived . . . and it was a tortoise, not a cheetah. Of all the animals, I could handle this one.
I went to pick up the escapee and he skidded across the floor with surprising speed. "You're supposed to be slow," I gritted out, chasing him down the hall before finally grabbing him by the shell and hoisting him up. His little legs kept scrambling under him for a few seconds before he resigned himself to the fact he’d been caught.
I surveyed the damage as I walked him back to the reptile care room in Ward A. Luckily, there hadn't been many breakable things at ground level for him to knock over. If he had gotten up on the countertop, that would've been a very different story.
I placed the shelled fugitive back into his carrier and carefully latched the door. It was fiddly, rusted on one end, and easy to mistake for shut when the latch was still only half in the lock. I rattled the wire door a few times to make sure the escape artist was well and truly stuck for the night before turning to clean up the trail of overturned bowls and crates.
"Frankie," someone whispered into the darkness.
My brow furrowed. There was no way I could've heard that, right?
I spun, searching the darkness with my phone light. It probably was just the whir of the air filter.
"Frankie," a voice whispered again, clearer this time.
I froze, my arms rippling with goose bumps as I searched the shadows. Was I still asleep? No , my logic told me. This was very real. And I did hear someone whispering my name from the shadows, not a figment of my imagination.
I tiptoed into the next room, debating whether I should investigate the sound or run upstairs and hide under my bedsheets until morning. Was this place haunted? The only logical conclusion was I was down here, alone, with a freaking ghost. I suddenly realized I was standing in a dark hospital ward like every fucking slasher movie, and now some rogue spirit was whispering my name.
Well, at least this is an interesting way to be murdered. Francesca Benedetti, death by poltergeist.
"Frankie." I shuddered as the voice called again. “Frankie.”
Creeping through the next room, I headed toward the sound when a hand landed on my shoulder. I shrieked, dropping my phone.
"Frankie," Finch said, holding me out by both arms. “Jesus. Are you okay? What happened?"
"I . . .” I spun around, my whole body shaking. “Were you . . . Oh god, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but I think I just heard a ghost.”
Finch was clearly not expecting that response. “A ghost?”
“Yeah.” I glared into the darkness at the end of the hall. “It was whispering my name .”
Finch's concern morphed into a smile as recognition lit up her face. "Ah," she said. "Come this way.”
She threaded her fingers through mine, lifting my hand to kiss the back of it, which I told myself was just out of friendly reassurance and nothing more. As she pulled me down the hall in the direction of the sound, I practically hid behind her as we moved farther into the darkness. We stopped at the mesh of an aviary door, coming face-to-face with a very awake scarlet macaw.
"This is Monty," Finch said, making introductions. "Monty, this is the other Frankie, the one I was telling you about."
The macaw's pupils widened as he spotted Finch and he whispered again, "Frankie."
I gaped at the bird. That sound was coming from him?
"It was a macaw?" I whirled to Finch for confirmation. "How does he know how to say my name? Why does he whisper it so creepily?”
Finch chuckled. "When I come down here to feed the baby bird, Frankie—complicated, I know. You can blame Dove for that—I whisper to her so I don’t wake up all the other patients." She tipped her head to the macaw. "Monty must've learned the whispering from me. He also knows how to say “hot stuff” and can whistle a bunch of TikTok sounds that Dove taught him. He’s a big fan of Billie Eilish if you have any requests.”
“It was a macaw,” I said again, still in bemused disbelief. Who would’ve ever thought that could be the reason? I didn’t blame myself for thinking ghost. Really, that still made more sense. My panic finally eased. Finch released my hand as if suddenly realizing she was still holding it.
"What are you doing down here anyway?” she asked.
"Your tortoise got out," I said, waving down the hallway behind me. "He's fine. I put him back. I was just cleaning up his disaster trail.”
“Scooter,” Finch muttered. “Never has a tortoise given me as much trouble as him.” She folded her arms and looked at me. “That was thoughtful of you, but you should’ve just woken me up. I could’ve handled it.”
"I know, but I wanted you to get some sleep," I replied. "If it was anything more formidable than a tortoise, I promise I would've asked for your help."
Finch wiped the sleep from her eyes and checked her watch. “It's almost time for Cranky Frankie's feed so I guess I'll get a head start on that." She swept her hair out of her eyes, her gaze lingering on my hoodie then moving down to my bare legs and feet. A smile formed on her lips. "Of all the things I expected to find coming down here."
"Living above a vet hospital must be an adventure," I said.
“Only with you in it.” Finch shook her head. "When you're used to living with six siblings, you'd be surprised how calm and organized this place is by comparison, even with wild animals as housemates.”
My chuckle was cut short as she touched a gentle hand to my forearm. "Go back to sleep," she said and rocked forward for a split second before immediately rocking back again like a neurotic seesaw. The way she leaned in, it was as if she were planning on kissing me. Maybe her sleep-drunk brain still thought we needed to pretend.
She tried to play it off by shifting her weight back and forth a few more times and stretching her neck side to side, but I caught the way she’d dipped her head ever so slightly.
"Do you want me to help you?” I asked. "I'm up now. My heart’s still racing. Let me tidy or wash up or something."
Her face softened at the offer. "That is very kind of you, but I'm okay," she said. "I make the summer volunteers do a lot of the cleaning anyway. They get experience around a vet hospital and a letter of recommendation from me in exchange, so I’d say it’s a fair trade.”
“Probably a good way of weeding out the ones not cut out for veterinary medicine too,” I mused. “Very perceptive.”
I’d certainly be deterred by spending my days cleaning up bodily fluids. I had no idea how medical professionals did it. I’d gagged when I’d found a batch of moldy raspberries in the fridge yesterday, and here Finch was just casually surgically removing gecko tails and shit.
As we walked back down the hall, Finch’s eyes fell to my weapon of choice—the discarded surgical scissors. She picked them up and put them into a tub of soapy water in the sink. “I will be putting these through the sanitizer again. No more scissoring random ghosts,” she scolded then laughed to herself. “At least not this kind of scissoring.”
My cheeks burned furiously at that comment. I looked everywhere but at Finch. “Okay, uh, goodnight again then."
"Goodnight, Goldilocks," Finch said as I scampered back down the hall and away from the creepy macaw who knew how to whisper my name.