Mom began to glow with excitement. Years sloughed off of her haggard, worn face, and I could swear the dark circles under her eyes brightened a little. She was a woman transformed—not even Mama Veers’ skeptical expression could slow her down. Me…well, I felt my plan unfolding into chaos before my very eyes.
“The police are on their way,” Mom said, vindicating my fears. “In case…I guess in case it’s actually her attacker or something.”
She said the last part quickly, and with an air of denial. She might as well have said, “In case it turns out to be Big Foot.”
“You think it’s her?” Mama Veers said.
Mom grabbed her purse from the sink in a white-knuckled grip and bolted for the door.
“Let’s see,” Mom said, and was out the door. Morgan’s mom raced after her.
The cops were on their way…Mom would be looking for me. Abraham would be getting just as desperate as I was, which meant trouble. Desperate, dangerous people were unpredictable.
I counted to ten—with the Mother-May-I’s in between—then left the stall. When I’d first tore into the bathroom, I hadn’t taken much time to review my surroundings before diving headfirst into a stall. This time, as I walked out, I noticed my reflection. It couldn’t have been further from the wan, drowned girl with the raccoon eyes and the thin, blue lips. My skin, pink and flush, glowed with health and, not ashamed to say, very little acne. My hair had that Pantene-commercial volume and sheen, and it framed my face rather than choking it. Lips fuller and pinker than I’d ever seen them.
I let out a long breath.
Was I a vampire? Just a monster, draining the living to become a mockery of it? Suddenly, I didn’t want to look at that reflection anymore. I wanted nothing to do with it. It was more of a perversion than a reflection—if I didn’t think stealth and my survival weren’t, at the moment, synonymous, I would have smashed that stupid mirror to bits. I settled on turning away and sneaking out of the bathroom.
No one in the hallway, but I did hear the unmistakable sound of elevator doors clunking together. Two moms heading downstairs, I guessed, one of them in a frantic cloud of elation. I took a deep breath, made a point to turn my phone off, and followed my nose.
The bête-noire trickled in, and despite the urges of my body and the jelly-like strength of my legs, I went toward the source. I used it like a bloodhound, or a really twisted game of Hot and Cold. There were three more doors left in the hallway, before it swung to the left. All three were patient rooms.
I peeked in the little glass-and-wire window of the first room, and my heart flip-flopped. Morgan. Lying in bed, wearing a flimsy white paper gown, with a string of tubes draping down from an IV and into her wrist. Still, her skin was rosy, and the way her long golden hair splayed draped across her pillow, I couldn’t help but feel the smallest stab of jealousy. She looked more like Sleeping Beauty than a coma patient. Ugh.
I shook off the badly-timed envy moment and peeked around the room. Abraham wasn’t in there—in fact, nobody was. Empty.
I opened the door slowly and pulled the stun gun out of my pocket. I groped for its little metal teeth to make sure I was pointing it the right way, then I crossed the threshold. One of the fluorescents on the ceiling flickered, and I jumped and almost tased myself in the leg.
“Morgan?” I whispered, fruitlessly. She didn’t move or stir.
I crossed the room and took an eyeful of her IV, trying to sort English words out of the technical hieroglyphics. I did manage to make out “Thiopental” on one of the bags, which I was eighty-percent sure was one of the drugs Ophelia had mentioned. One of the ones they don’t use much anymore. Abraham had been out of the game for a while, was my guess.
But it was pretty simple from there. The IV computer required an access code—but I had a more elegant solution in mind. As gently as I could, I picked up Morgan’s hand and examined it. The IV tube disappeared into a large squarish Band-Aid looking thing with a hole cut in the center. Ophelia called the needle a cannula, and I peered at it closely. It wouldn’t feel good, and there might be some bruising later, but I could just take the IV out without causing too much damage. It took me a while to work the Band-Aid off—you could tape a desk to the ceiling with that stuff. Finally I managed to scrape it off enough to free the cannula.
I eased it out of her arm, trying my best to quiet the squeamish protests of my girly brain. It came up, and blood with it, dripping down her arm and flecking her white hospital gown with a Rorschach pattern of blood. I held my hand tight to the wound until it calmed down, and put the Band-Aid back in place as a stop-gap bandage.
I pretended to be a tough nurse from a medical drama, but mostly I wanted to yak.
I grabbed Morgan’s arm and shook it, hoping for a reaction but receiving none. I didn’t think it worked like that—just shut off the juice and all better, but maybe I was hoping for it. I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“I love you, honey,” I said. “I’m gonna fix this. I promise.”
I knew she could see me, from the windows of the train car in that Grey place. Or at least, I hoped she could. I didn’t want to think of those horrible, slouching monsters catching up to them. Were they locked in those very train cars right then, watching twisting corpses slam their fists against the steel like some bad zombie movie?
I ran my hand over my face and wondered if they were looking through Zack’s windows too, in that faraway Grey land. Would they be able to tell me what I was walking in to? Probably. I could picture Puck and Zack and Morgan, staring in horror as I walked into an ambush. Then again, can you call it an ambush, when you see it coming? Or is that just suicide?
I squeezed my best friend’s hand again, and left her room. I didn’t even tuck the stun gun back into my coat. Instead, I flipped it in my hand and tucked it tight to my wrist. No point in giving away everything, right?
I checked the second room, but the lights were off. The third room was lit. I sneaked up to the door and peered inside the window. Zack, looking very…well, Zack-like, lying in his bed. He looked pretty tan against the white of the pillow and the hospital gown, and I realized I needed to hang out with less attractive people. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a flutter of panic at seeing him so…helpless.
I sneaked into his room, a little bit surprised to not be immediately jumped by Abraham. The bête-noire filled my head with bowel-shaking ugly fear, but I was keeping a handle on it. Still, he should be so close…
I tried to put that out of my mind, and went to Zack’s bedside. There was clear evidence of family members—flowers, purses, extra blankets and empty Coke cans. Why they weren’t in the room, I had no idea. The idea of them all leaving to go to the bathroom or hit the cafeteria seemed a little far-fetched. Was Abraham trying to clear out the civilians? How nice of him.
But that meant I had even less time, if Abraham was so ready for me.
I repeated the same steps I’d used on Morgan, and freed the IV needle with a similar splash of bright red blood. I held his hand, trying to stem the flow, staring into his closed eyes. The handsome, square line of his jaw. The dark hair, the spikey front deflated a little, lying over his brow. I brushed it out of his face, trailing my fingers down across his cheek. Something warm sparked inside of me, and calm tears put a sheen over the world. He could see me, I thought, from the train car. Maybe he was seeing me for the last time.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t just stay dead, like everybody else. I’m sorry you’re here. God…”
I put my hands on his shoulders and laid my head on his chest. The steady rhythm of his heart, the shallow rise and fall of his chest lulled me, wanted to draw me down. This close to him, I couldn’t smell hospital anymore—just him. Just Zack.
I heard a noise, and it ripped me out of the moment. I spun around, leaping off the bed, and stared at the tiny square window.
Mom. Her eyes wide, staring at me. Oh no.
I ran for the door and threw it open.
It happened fast. I suppose that’s the only way it could have happened.
I jumped out of the room, but as I did, the air seemed to shimmer and distort, like looking over a campfire. Mom disappeared—just flicked away, like a cheesy effect in a bad movie. The hallway darkened, too, and my eyes tried to adjust to the shifting scenery. Standing in the center of the hallway where there had been nothing but air, was Abraham.
Dizziness swept over me, and I hesitated. Abraham, still draped in immaculate white doctor’s clothes, moved like a blur and wrapped his arms around me. I screamed and felt a wave of heat burn my skin, like I’d just bear-hugged an oven. I let out a choking gasp, tried to fight, tried to struggle, but he was a rock. Pulsing rings of light tore out of his body, flickering the darkened room like a strobe light. Each pulse that swept over me weakened my resolve, filling me with warmth and light and happiness.
He was made of happiness, radiated it. Everything I had ever wanted…they could be mine. Just let go, the warmth told me. Let it all go. My knees weakened and buckled, but Abraham held me up. Wouldn’t let me fall. My head slumped—my cheek fell against his chest. I breathed in his scent and closed my eyes.
“Lucy!”
My eyes opened. I felt light…like I might just float away.
“Lucy!”
It wasn’t easy to see, both because of the pulsing light and because my eye lids just…didn’t…want to…open. When I managed to turn my thousand-pound head a little, I saw Zack, on his bed, tearing at the tubes sprouting from his right arm. Zack, rolling to a crouch on his bed. Zack, diving at me and Abraham like a handsome cruise missile.
He knocked us both down and out the door, and my shoulder cracked hard against the tile floor. A tidal wave of cold pain raced up my arm, and I screamed and rolled away from them. I clutched at my shrieking shoulder, and as I did, I realized the excruciating pain had lifted some of the fog. Well that, and the fact that Abraham was no longer holding me in a death grip, filling me with his…whatever-the-hell it was.
I dug in my pocket as I rolled—only seeing Abraham and Zack out of the corner of my eye. Finally, my hand closed over the little plastic stun gun, and I whipped it out of my pocket. I crawled to my knees and looked up.
I saw Abraham kneeling, holding Zack by his throat. No, that’s impossible…Zack looked, physically, like he could snap Abraham in two. He outweighed him by a good forty pounds, at least. Zack’s muscles were toned, and he was at least three inches taller than Abraham. And Zack fought. Even as Abraham began to stand, holding Zack at arm’s length like he was stuffed with feathers, Zack swung his arms like a jackhammer, raining blows down on Abraham’s face. He jerked and cursed and spit with each punch, but they weren’t doing the damage they should have. Abraham looked like an annoyed pedestrian in a driving rain rather than a man in a brawl.
I raced across the hallway and buried the stun gun’s metal fangs deep into Abraham’s back and squeezed the trigger. Blue arcs raced through the gun, and it shrieked its tac-tac-tac-tac-tac through the empty hallway.
Abraham arched his back and roared, his hand spasming and dropping Zack, who hit the tile floor like a sack full of potatoes. I held down the trigger, grabbed Abraham’s shoulder, and forced him against the wall. For a brief, terrified second I wondered if touching Abraham would zap me too—this proved not to be the case, another movie myth zipping past my head. I jammed my forearm into his back, slamming his face up against the wall, and kept the stun gun firing.
He jerked and sputtered under the shock, and for one brief moment I wondered if it would be possible to kill the bastard. But the longer I held the trigger, the more he began to fight. He pushed at the wall, weakly at first, but gaining strength. Zack made it to one knee, gasping for air, both hands cradling his throat.
“Dammit,” I whispered between gritted teeth, and tried to reach into my coat for the other weapon.
As soon as I took my pinning arm off of Abraham’s back, he bucked like a mule. I held the stun gun as tight as I could, and it lifted only an inch off of his coat, but that was all he needed. He spun, and with what looked like a casual one-arm push, flung me across the hallway. My back hit the wall and blew all the air out of me, and I landed in a tangle on the tile.
“When are you going to learn?” Abraham whispered, and I was happy to hear a catch in his voice. The stun gun had done something, anyway. “This isn’t good versus evil, Lucy. This is just nature. This is the way it should be. And you…well, shouldn’t. I only—”
Wham. Abraham staggered, and turned around. I glanced up to see Zack, still wearing that hilarious paper gown, on his feet behind Abraham with a badly-bent IV stand in his hand. Apparently Zack had hoped his swing-for-the-fences strike would have a little more effect. His face twisted in disappointment.
“Son of a bitch,” Zack said, and tried to swing again. Abraham raised a thin arm and deflected the blow. His other arm swung around and hit Zack so hard I thought his neck broke. Zack’s nose exploded in blood, and he staggered. The pole hit the ground with a ring, and Zack tumbled to the floor. He didn’t move.
“No,” I screamed, and felt a wave of heat tingle up my arms. I didn’t even try to stop it. A blast of invisible force struck Abraham in the chest and flung him against the wall. Some part of me—some still-thinking part of me, outside of the curtain of red rage, made the effort to use that same power to push Zack down the hall, away from us, away from danger. His unconscious body slid a good thirty feet before coming to rest—gently—at the foot of a wall.
I stood up, and Abraham fought to escape the power holding him against the wall. His feet dangled a foot off the ground. I approached him, feeling waves of heat leech away. I knew I couldn’t keep this up long without burning every ounce of juice I had. Abraham’s thin, too-powerful arms corded and pushed against the invisible bonds.
My last chance.
Tears were sliding down my eyes, and I wasn’t sure why. But I leaned forward and pressed my lips against Abraham’s. They were hot—blistering. I opened my mouth, and so did he, out of instinct or fear or…who knows. I took a gigantic, chest-creaking breath and tried to drain him dry.
I’ve never been hit with a truck…but I imagine it wouldn’t have felt too different. A blast of lung-searing heat scooped into me, but it wasn’t the usual batch of essence. It filled me, and as I drew it in I realized my mistake. Abraham…the Mors…wasn’t human. He didn’t have essence to steal from. Or if he did…he had an unlimited supply. He was a conduit for it. As I tried to drain him, I felt an even more intense version of the happy-drug he exuded from his body. My legs wobbled, and a sudden blast of cold sliding up my spine told me I’d lost—his weird light was stealing mine. I began to crumple. I could feel him, along the edge of my peripheral vision, breaking free of the force holding him to the wall.
I triggered the stun gun. It wasn’t much—just a finger twitch—but the half-second of shock made Abraham twitch. I threw myself away from him, but he grabbed my wrist and twisted hard. My bones shattered, and I shrieked in agony. He pulled the stun gun from my hand and with a look of unmistakable satisfaction shoved the metal fangs into my neck and pulled the trigger.
My muscles twisted, and I had no air to scream. I jerked and bobbled in his grip, feeling the stun gun dump into me and turn my body into jelly. After what felt like an eternity, he stopped, and he let me fall to the ground.
“Stupid bitch,” Abraham growled. He wiped his hand across his mouth. “How’s that feel? Fun, huh?”
I tried to crawl away, but the combination of the stun gun and the suddenly biting cold made my body control go to hell. I managed to wiggle a little and slide away from him, but he just laughed bitterly, leaned down, and stabbed my hip with the stun gun. He zapped me again, the tac-tac-tac noise drowning out my whimpers. I writhed, but my body wasn’t my own. I didn’t stop until he let up.
I couldn’t sigh or move or talk, but when he looked at the stun gun in disdain and threw it down the hallway I felt a
tiny measure of relief.
Abraham raised his leg and stomped on my outstretched arm. My elbow shattered, and this time I had the strength to scream. I rolled, but now both of my arms were useless. My left wrist broken, my right elbow shattered, I cradled them both to my chest, unable to stop the tears from rolling down my face.
“You…b….”
I tried to curse him between sobs, but I didn’t have the strength. An arctic wind blew across my body, and I knew I didn’t have long. This wasn’t going to be it, I decided, as I pushed myself across the tile with only my toes. Abraham stalked behind me, watching me try to escape with amused eyes.
Then he paused and seemed to gain his composure.
I pushed my head up against a door near me, and another shove of my toes pushed me through. I glanced up…I could see Morgan’s outstretched arm. She hadn’t woken up yet. I pulled my head up a little…Zack lay motionless where I had pushed him.
“This is it,” Abraham said. He crouched down next to me, and I tried to tug my cheek away from his outstretched hand. I sobbed as his hot finger ran down my cheek. “I got a little…carried away. I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
He looked down at my arms with genuine pity. I tried to spit at him, but I didn’t have enough.
“Just do it…” I whispered.
He dropped to one knee and began to pulse with that white light.
Euphoria slipped over me like a comforting blanket. His body, throbbing with light, cut a lean silhouette against the fluorescents in the ceiling. He covered my eyes with his hand, and the throbbing in my useless arms subsided. He leaned down, and his breath brushed my cheek.
“Goodbye,” he said.
I grabbed a handful of his lab coat with my grasping fingers and…we…flipped.
The world swirled away, and we landed hard on what had to be a rooftop. I could see the black tar of the roof, feel it underneath me. Around us, below us, the grey landscape rolled on. We were in the city…I could even see the train station, with its huge rusted spider crouched over the hub of three or four sets of rust-red tracks. Dilapidated buildings leaned in to the cracked streets.
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