I nodded.
“I should have known,” he said, standing up and pacing at the end of the bed. “They always infiltrate positions of power. But I’m surprised he would reveal himself. I mean, if you know who he is, his cover is blown.”
“He doesn’t know I know,” I said.
“Better he doesn’t. It tends to make them a little desperate.”
“Desperate?” I asked, my voice growing shrill again. “What do they do when they’re desperate? He already tried to kill me.”
“I told you, he wasn’t trying to kill you,” Marcus insisted, pausing at the end of the bed and stepping closer to me. “You’re no good to them dead. They need you alive to extract your PSS.”
“But why do they even want it? I thought CAMFers wanted to get rid of PSS, not collect it.”
“I don’t know for sure,” Marcus said. “But I do know that for the last six months, they’ve been trying to take kids with PSS so they can extract them.”
“How could you possibly know that? It sounds like some kind of urban legend.”
“It is not an urban legend,” he said, his voice gone low and angry. “I know it’s true because one of them escaped and he told us.”
“Who’s us?’”
“What?”
“You said, ‘told us.’ Who’s us?’”
“Just me and some friends.”
“Well, where is he now? Did you report it to the police?”
“No,” Marcus said, laughing darkly. “The police were in on it.”
“Oh come on, that’s just paranoid. All the police couldn’t have been in on it.”
“Not all, no. But one CAMFer in a position of power is usually enough. Take your Fire Chief for example.”
“He’s not mine,” I said, “but yeah, I get your point.”
“Are you sure he has your backpack?”
“Well, I don’t have it, and you said you saw him with it.”
“We have to assume he has it then. I need you to tell me exactly what’s in that bag.”
I hesitated, but only for a second. The time for secrets was over. “It’s a bag of razor blades,” I said. “Well, they used to be in a plastic bag, but that pretty much got cut to shreds, so now they’re just loose in the bottom of my pack.”
“You pulled a bag of razor blades out of some girl in math class?” he asked, but it was almost drowned out by the muffled voices coming from right outside my room.
The door began to swing open.
We threw ourselves at the dark maw of the bathroom. Marcus pulled the door shut behind us, and I locked it. I turned on the light and the faucet. We both stood, sweating and panting.
“Olivia?” a female voice asked from outside the bathroom door. The night shift nurse.
I reached past Marcus and turned off the faucet. “Yes?” I answered, trying to sound groggy instead of wired with adrenaline.
“Are you all right? I thought I heard voices in here.”
“Oh, um. I guess I fell asleep with the TV on. Some action movie woke me up. I just turned it off. Sorry about that.
“Well, do you need anything?” the nurse asked.
“No, I’m good,” I said, feeling Marcus behind me, panting like a Labrador again. Why did guys breathe so much?
“Well, it’s chilly in here. I’ll check the thermostat,” said the voice, fading away from the door a little. Then, “Who in the world left your window open?”
“I did that,” I called out. “I got really warm.”
I heard a distant click, the sound of the nurse closing the window, and the pad of her orthopedically correct nursing shoes coming back to the bathroom door.
“Sounds like you might be running a fever,” Nurse Nosey said. “Are you almost done in there? I’d like to take your temperature.” Crap. This wasn’t good. I pushed past Marcus and turned the shower on.
“I’m just getting into the shower. Could you come back later and do it then?”
“If you’re sure you feel all right,” the voice said rather reluctantly.
“I’m good. Really. Thanks for checking.”
“Okay. I’ll be back in half an hour,” she said.
“Good job,” Marcus said when we’d heard the sound of the room door shut behind her. “Quick thinking.”
“Thanks,” I turned to face him. The bathroom was small, but not so small he had to stand that close to me. We might as well have been slow dancing. He was the perfect height for me too. My head would fit right there under his collar bone. I blinked up at him, and he looked down at me.
“So, what’s the plan?” he asked in a husky whisper. For a change he wasn’t grabbing my arm and telling me what to do.
“The plan is to get out of here,” I said, trying to sound all business, trying to ignore how badly I suddenly wanted to stare at his lips. “Knowing nurses, we probably have less than half an hour. If we leave the shower on and the bathroom door closed, it might stall her a little longer because she’ll think I’m still in here.”
“And exactly where are we going?” he asked. Was he just humouring me? Just giving me the illusion of control while he manipulated me into doing what he wanted with his overwhelming proximity?
“I am going to my friend Emma’s,” I said. “I have no idea where you’re going.”
“Okay,” he said, hesitating only slightly before gesturing toward the door.
“What?” I couldn’t help myself. I knew he was holding something back, some opinion he was dying to share.
“It sounds like your plan,” he said carefully, “might result in the CAMFers burning down your friend’s house.”
My hand hesitated on the doorknob. Would they do that? Probably not. It would be way too obvious. But they might do something else that would put the Campbells in danger.
“Do you have a plan B?” Marcus asked.
I was impressed. I knew his plan B, and A, and all the plans in between. He wanted me to go with him, but here he was holding back, not imposing it on me. Or maybe that wasn’t his plan anymore, now that I’d lost the blades.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s get out of this hospital first.” I opened the bathroom door a crack, checking the larger room before I slipped out into it.
I could feel Marcus close behind me.
I kept one eye on the door as I crossed to the window, re-opened it, and stepped quickly out into the darkened courtyard. Crouching behind the bush between my room and the next, I waited for Marcus. What was taking him so long? He’d been right behind me. Finally, I heard a rustle as he climbed through the window, hefting something round and shiny in front of him. It was the bag of clothes from Emma.
“What are you doing?” I whispered in frustration.
“I thought you’d want your clothes,” he said, pulling the window shut behind him with a click. If he wanted to drag the bag along, who was I to stop him?
He crouched beside me under the bush. We seemed to be developing a habit of hanging out in shrubbery together.
“Now what?” he whispered.
“Now we crawl along this wing and try not to get seen,” I said, echoing the words of my dad from years before. It felt weird escaping with Marcus the same way I’d escaped with him—almost like a betrayal. Like I was superimposing someone over my dad the way my mom had. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t into Marcus. Yes, he was cute. He just wasn’t my type.
We started careful and slow. Marcus followed silently behind me, dragging the bag of clothes with him like some dutiful boyfriend at the mall. By the third window, we picked up the pace. Most of the rooms’ blinds had been pulled for the night, and we could speed past those, but we still weren’t making great time. I was slowing us down. My whole body ached and my throat burned. We’d probably eaten up half our time already, and we weren’t even clear of the hospital building.
I stopped in a bush to catch my breath, and took a look at the next room through the branches. It was going to be our first real challenge. Lights blazing. Blinds open. From
where I sat I could see straight into it. There was a blond girl lying in the hospital bed, her wrists and arms heavily wrapped in bandages, an IV tube snaking out from under them. Her eyes were open, but glazed over. Her face was sickly pale. Her mother was sitting at the side of her bed, head bowed, eyes closed, a Bible clutched in her hands, her lips moving in whispered prayer.
The girl in the bed was Passion Wainwright.
14
BREATHE WITH ME
“What is it?” Marcus whispered, crawling into the shadow of the bush and peering over my shoulder.
I felt the moment he recognized Passion, the slight, sharp intake of his breath, followed by a long exhale that fluttered the hair at the back of my neck.
Passion looked bad. Really bad. And my hand had done that.
“Hey,” Marcus said, touching my shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”
Not my fault? Who was he kidding? A day ago Passion had been a slightly disturbed cutter. Today she was hospitalized, suicidal and catatonic. This must have been the client emergency my mother had run off to last night. Passion Wainwright slitting her wrists. Whatever the blades were, she obviously needed them back, and I had let the CAMFers take them.
“Sometimes people look worse before they get better,” Marcus whispered, squeezing my shoulder. What was he, a fucking Hallmark card? Maybe he really believed the bullshit he was shovelling, but I’d learned a long time ago that the worse things are, the more people lie about them.
“We have to get the blades back for her,” I said, shaking his hand off my shoulder. Then, I stood up and bolted past the brightly lit window at a full-out sprint.
Marcus let out a muted, “Hey” behind me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I left him behind or they sent the entire hospital staff after me. By the time they did, I’d be up in the woods, halfway to Chief Palmer’s house, on my way to getting Passion’s blades back and fixing this mess my hand had made.
I ran past the next window, and the next, the end of the hospital wing streaming by me. I came to the meadow at the bottom of the hill and didn’t even slow down. If anything, I picked up speed, revelling in the satisfying thud of my boots against the grass, the frantic beat of my heart, the pain in my body and the night air stinging down my throat and lungs. I deserved some pain.
I came to the bottom of the hill and started pounding up the incline, but it was like hitting a wall. My body suddenly decided enough was enough. I could feel the rush of adrenaline drain away. Part way up the slope I had to stop, bend over, and gasp for breath. My throat felt like someone had scraped it with a cheese-grater.
I turned, looking down at UMH. I was almost at the exact spot my dad and I had sat to watch the sunset. Below me was a dark, humpbacked form trudging up the hill, bent over something in its hand. For one weird moment, I thought it was the Dark Man, then realized it was only Marcus.
“What was that about?” he asked, sounding winded and annoyed, as he tucked his cell phone in his pocket. Strange time to be texting someone. Maybe he’d just been checking the time.
“Did anyone see us?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Don’t think so.” He came alongside me, the bag of clothes slung over his shoulder like he was evil Santa or something. He turned and looked down at the hospital. “We should probably keep going. Your nurse will be back to check on you any second. Where to now?” he asked, looking up the hill.
“Plan B,” I said, turning upwards and putting one foot in front of the other. “I’m going to get the blades back.”
“What? Hey, no way!” Marcus objected, catching up with me.
“I know who has them, and I know exactly where he lives.”
“No,” Marcus said, dropping the bag and grabbing my arm. Old habits die hard.
“Let go,” I said, trying to pull away, but he wasn’t messing around.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, moving close to me. “This is exactly what they want you to do. It’s probably why they took the backpack in the first place, to lure you after it.”
“You’re hurting me,” I said, though it wasn’t technically true.
He looked down at his hand on my arm and loosened his grip, but he didn’t let go. “Have you completely forgotten what I just told you down there about what they do?”
“No, I haven’t. You also said your friend escaped.”
“So you think you can?” he asked, laughing in disbelief.
“Why not? I got away from them at the cemetery and when they tried to burn my house down.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” he said. “These guys are insane. There’s no way I’m going to let you do this.”
“And how do you plan to stop me? Pull my arm off?” I yelled in his face.
Down below light flared, and we both turned toward the hospital to see security flood-lamps flashing on all over the grounds.
“Shit,” we said in unison. We were standing right out in the open.
“Run for the trees!” I said, yanking my arm from his hand and tearing up the hill. I could hear him, first behind me, then we were running side by side, the damn bag of clothes bumping between us. My lungs were on fire. My legs were going wobbly. Marcus was paces ahead of me. He turned and waited, holding out his hand. I stumbled into him, and he grabbed me, pulling us both into the shadows.
We collapsed at the foot of a gnarly tree, panting and trying to catch our breaths, but I couldn’t find mine. I could hear myself gasping. I gulped at the air, but it didn’t do any good. The shadows around me were getting darker, like an encroaching tunnel at the edge of my vision.
“Hey,” Marcus said, leaning over me. “Take a deep breath.”
I can’t. I can’t. That’s what I tried to say, but it just came out as more gasping.
“Seriously, take it easy.”
I tried, but the more I tried the more I felt my throat closing up. I flailed in panic, banging the back of my head against the tree. I didn’t know if my eyes were closed or open.
“Olivia!” someone barked, sounding just like my father when he was afraid for me. He grabbed me, wrapping me in his arms and pulling me into his chest. “Breathe,” he commanded. “Just like this. Breathe with me.”
I fought to catch my breath, to remember the unconscious pattern it had always been, but the air shuddered in, choking me.
He took my ghost hand and slipped it inside his jacket, splaying my fingers against his shirt, against the warm rise and fall of his chest. “Like this. Feel this. Breathe with me,” he ordered, placing his hand over mine.
Don’t do that. My hand is dangerous. It will hurt you. That’s what I thought, but it wasn’t what I felt. I felt his chest expand under my hand. I felt my body relax into the warmth of him. Inhale. Then exhale. Then inhale again. The dark tunnel was receding. My throat opened and oxygen, like cool water, seeped into my lungs. I took one long wonderful breath, then another.
Twenty, maybe thirty breaths later, I slowly became aware of more than the need for oxygen. I became aware that I was curled in Marcus’s lap, his arms firmly around me, his long legs stretched out under me. My head did tuck under his neck perfectly, just as I’d imagined, and his chin was resting on my head. Both my hands were buried inside his jacket, and yes, I could feel the rise and fall of his chest and under it the loud hammer of his heart. Thu-bump. Thu-bump. Thu-bump. It was so loud, as if there was nothing between it and me.
“Your heart is so loud,” I whispered, between one Thu-bump and the next.
His arms tensed, pushing me gently but firmly off his lap onto the grass. “You had me really scared there for a minute,” he said, brushing something off his pant leg. “You were hyperventilating pretty badly.”
“Sorry,” I said. I could barely see his face in the shadows under the trees. Hopefully that meant he hadn’t seen the look on mine when he’d dumped me out of his lap. At least he hadn’t scooted away from me. Our shoulders were still touching.
“No problem,” he said. “Ca
tch your breath. I think we have a little time.”
I followed his glance down to the hospital below. It was pretty lit up and I could see several security guards shining their flashlights behind bushes in the courtyard. But Marcus was right. It would probably be a while before they expanded the search to the hills and woods beyond.
“I’m ready,” I said, “If we stick to the trees, they shouldn’t see us.”
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” he said earnestly, “but I have a place we can go. A safe place.”
“No,” I said. “I have to get my pack.”
“Yes, you do,” he said, surprising me with his agreement. “But do you really think you’re in any condition to do that tonight?”
We both knew I’d just proven I wasn’t.
“You have to give yourself some time to recover,” he continued. “And you can’t just barge in there. We have to have a plan.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. I know the CAMFers. And you know the town.”
He had a point. Several actually. And then there was the tiny fact that he knew how to snap my hand back to normal, and I wanted him to teach me how to do it. And he was willing to help me get the blades back. Besides, he’d just helped keep me breathing. It was pretty obvious he didn’t pose any kind of threat to me.
“So where’s this safe place?” I asked, looking at him.
“It’s a bit of a walk,” he said, his teeth flashing a white grin in the dark. “You up to it?”
“I think so.”
He stood and reached down to help me up. The bag of clothes was under the tree, a few items strewn about. He quickly stuffed them back in and hefted it over his shoulder. This time, he gently took my arm and guided me over a rocky outcrop. Finally, we entered the woods, leaving the glow of the UMH behind us.
15
SOMEPLACE SAFE
We were on Old Delarente Road, a dirt track about two miles south of town that ended at an ancient, abandoned lumber camp deep in the woods. I had been there before, once on a hike with my dad when he’d still been healthy, a second time to take photos when I’d done a sophomore social studies project on Greenfield history.
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