* * * * *
Abby found a spot on the fifth level of a parking garage directly across the street from the hospital’s west campus. It was exactly where Eleanor had told her to go. After jamming the truck into park, she leaped out the door and scurried toward the elevator. She glared at the buttons as the elevator sank toward the floor, wishing there was some way she could speed the thing up. “Where do I go?” asked Abby when she got to the bottom. “Come on Eleanor, tell me what to do.” A tingling sensation crept into her bones, and the blood in her veins started to burn.
“Follow it,” said Eleanor, her words sharp as a blade. “The burning is coming from your dying beloved. Follow it, and it will lead you to him.” Then the elevator was open and she was outside, running down the sidewalk toward the hospital’s doors. The burning feeling was stronger now, but she refused to slow down. She had to move. She stopped only when she’d entered the lobby, scanning the room for an information booth.
There, she thought, sucking in a mouthful of air. Her insides were on fire; it was hard to breathe. “You’re close,” said Eleanor. “Just follow the burn.” And yet Abby stumbled toward the man in the booth, knowing it would be faster than finding Brian by feel. Eleanor’s voice boomed no in her ears, but the pain was almost intolerable now, beating down on her from every direction. She had to hurry. Brian could have already disappeared, and she couldn’t tell which way the burning was coming from anymore.
“Focus!” cried Eleanor. “Follow the pain!”
“I can’t! I don’t know how!”
And then she was standing in front of the information desk, staring into the face of a thin young man.
The man at the desk wasn’t much older than Abby, and he would have been considered handsome save for the dark bubbles of acne knotting his skin.
“Miss?” he said, his eyes on her face. “Miss, are you hurt? Do you need help?”
“What?” wheezed Abby, taking in the waiting room with its glowering Coke machine and wide, seafoam chairs. She touched her hand to her forehead and checked for blood, relieved when her fingers came down clean.
“Miss?” he repeated. The man’s eyes were scared, and there was an urgency in his voice that she immediately understood.
Quick, she thought, make him think you’re okay. You can’t help Brian if they commit you in here.
“No, I...” and then she remembered how she looked— rumpled clothing, skin pale as frost. “I’m fine. I’m just looking for someone, that’s all.”
“Smile,” said Eleanor, and Abby did. She shot the most dazzling smile that she could, focusing all of her energy on making her mouth look right. A lightness spread through the man behind the information booth, as relief flooded Abby’s chest. She’d never realized how intoxicating her beauty could be.
Too easy, she thought as her power charged through her, but then she glanced nervously around, remembering what Jake had said. Are the cops here? she wondered. Are there cameras on me right now? She dropped her head toward the floor and asked the man for directions. His voice came out in a monotone.
“Good,” said Eleanor. “He’s under your spell.”
Then Abby was hurrying through the lobby, stumbling toward a hall lined with elevators. She jumped into the first empty one that opened and slammed her hand against the close-door button, ignoring the other people who wanted to get in. She didn’t care. She had to be alone.
The world around her was beginning to blur. The burning was so strong that she could barely stand. “Focus,” said Eleanor. “You’re almost there.”
A scream tore through Abby and she doubled over. The fire inside her was searing her core. She kept praying that no one would enter the elevator, because she wasn’t sure if she could stay in control. The elevator beeped at every floor, until finally it stopped, and she was there.
Eleanor was singing now, the same song that she’d sung in the car. Her words tore through Abby, seeped into her blood, then burrowed deep inside her bones.
“Brian,” whimpered Abby. She knew where he was. There was a pulling inside her, like the call of the sea. She scurried by a sign marked “Intensive Care,” then passed a nurses’ station without looking up. She hoped they wouldn’t notice her, but, of course, they did.
“Wait!” yelled a nurse, but the pain was too great. Abby knew she couldn’t stop.
“Brian,” she moaned. “Help me now.”
And then she was inside his room, collapsing on the foot of his bed.
“Brian,” she sobbed staring down at his face. His neck was bruised, and his skin was waxy and pale. Several tubes snaked out from beneath his sheets, but the beeping machines next to him reminded her that he still had a chance. “Brian,” she whispered. It was hard to speak. The air felt like embers inside her lungs. “Brian!” He didn’t respond.
“Shut the door,” said Eleanor. “Block it with something. Then sing little sister, before it’s too late.”
Abby forced herself up off the bed, but her body was leaden. It wouldn’t work right. Each arm weighed over a hundred pounds. Yet somehow she managed to slam the door shut and half drag, half carry a chair from the opposite wall. She jammed it up against the doorknob, praying it would stay long enough for her to get everything done.
“See na ki la talí day!” howled Eleanor, her song reverberating through Abby’s mind. Abby tried to sing, but her tongue wouldn’t work. Her insides felt like they were on fire. She couldn’t do it; she couldn’t make a sound.
Stop it! thought Abby. Make it stop it now! But the song pulsed through every cell, charring her body. She started to scream.
“Now,” warned Eleanor. “Before they get in!” Abby stumbled toward the side of the bed. She grabbed the bed rail as the sound started to come, tearing her skin with its magical tones.
Help me, thought Abby. She could no longer see. Her head jerked back as the song exploded from her throat, wiping everything away until all she was, was sound.
Black Waters (Book 1 in the Songstress Trilogy) Page 31