Chapter 46
“The roads weren’t flooded?” Martina asks Armin.
He shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “I mean, not yet, at least. It was wet, sure, but it was draining just fine.”
“And your car is on the other side of the gates.” The urgency is making Martina’s voice high and reedy.
“Yeah,” Armin confirms for the third time.
“So we go.” Martina gets to her feet, pulling her wet hair back from her face. “We climb the gates and we drive and get help.”
She reaches for my hand.
“Come on. Get off the couch, we have to move.”
“Wait.” I shake my head. “No.”
“No?” Martina repeats incredulously. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean we can’t just go.” I stare up at her. “We can’t just leave the others here.”
Martina throws her hands up in frustration.
“Are you fucking kidding me? This is what you’ve been asking for this whole time! Don’t you see what this is? This friend of yours”—she gestures toward Armin without looking at him, her eyes locked on my face—“is our knight in shining fucking armor!”
“You want to just leave the others here? With whoever did that to—to Sandra?” My voice only hitches a little on her name.
She would have been proud of me. Sandra always said I got too caught up in my emotions. Never focused enough on the practicalities of the situation.
I bite back the grief that threatens to overwhelm me and get to my feet.
“We can’t do anything right now,” Martina says. “We need to get help.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “And we’re taking the others with us. We’re not just leaving them here.”
I turn to Armin.
“How many people can you fit in your car?” I ask him.
“Five,” he responds. “Maybe seven, eight, if it’s an emergency. And … I mean, yeah. This is definitely an emergency.”
“We get the others.” I declare to Martina.
“We don’t have time.” Martina grits her teeth. “We need to leave.”
I look at her, refusing to waver.
“Those women are your patients, Martina. You have a goddamned responsibility to them.”
“Not like this!” Martina shrieks. “Are you insane? I have a responsibility to give them therapy! I have a responsibility not to fuck them and to give them treatment! I don’t have a responsibility to stick around and get murdered for them!”
She’s panting, drenched and terrified, arms thrown wide and pupils huge and dark. Every trace of Dr. Martina Hastings wiped away.
I wonder how it is I was ever frightened of her. How it is I ever felt she had any power over me.
“Fine,” I say. “You might not think you have any responsibility to them. But I do.”
I look to Armin.
“We have to go get them,” I tell him quietly, in the private voice I use only with him.
Armin locks eyes with me, and then he nods.
Martina looks back and forth between us.
“You can’t be serious.” Her voice is flat.
“I’m not leaving without Isobel,” Armin points out. “And I don’t think she’s leaving without the other patients.”
“Or staff,” I add. “Belinda and Anna, too.”
“Fuck,” Martina groans into her hands.
Then she grows still. Her shoulders slump.
And she nods.
“Okay. Let’s go, then, before some psychopath with an axe breaks down the door.”