He stepped out and was revealed. My boyfriend was a patchwork quilt of a human being, but that didn’t matter in the least.
“You’re alive—”
Lips that were and were not his smiled. “Not technically.” He held his hands out to Asher, who released me to him.
“I demand safe passage for my services,” Asher said to Sike.
“Granted,” she said, and he disappeared. She pointed behind Ti and me. “I’ve called a car. Go upstairs, now.” Ti nodded, and turned to follow her commands.
* * *
From my vantage point, crushed against Ti’s chest, I could see-smell-feel where meat met meat and watch dust leaking out of each of Ti’s seams. He was like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, losing dust instead of straw.
“Who were they?” I asked him.
“Daytimers. They won’t last.”
“And then?” I felt him lean forward, to climb us up the observation room’s hill.
“And then we’ll see.”
I was quiet while he managed several large steps, navigating a path around pools of Shadows that were actively searching across the ground, with sticky tendrils waving in the air. I didn’t think they’d get us, as I thought the Shadows and I had a deal, but I didn’t want to put that to the test.
“Stop,” a voice ordered behind us. It sounded familiar. I looked up and saw recognition on Ti’s face. “Turn around.”
Ti didn’t move.
“Turn around, or I’ll take your soul where you stand, zombie.”
Ti squeezed me tighter to his chest and turned. Dren was there, pointing his sickle behind him. “Those things just ate my Hound.” He took a menacing step nearer us, and Ti stepped back.
Ti answered for both of us. “It’s not our fault you backed the wrong team.”
“I don’t expect to get paid after this mess—but your soul’s still up for grabs, girl,” he said with a leer. “And I need some recompense.”
“Don’t do this, Dren,” I whispered.
“Husker,” Ti began, his voice low in warning.
Ti couldn’t fight back, not while holding me. And dropping me would only damage me more. We could rush Dren, but then there was still the sickle to account for—
“Dren, please—” I reached my arm out toward him. Muscles that didn’t connect right in my abdomen anymore twitched and slid out of place. I screamed in pain and my arm fell.
Drops of blood I hadn’t known were cradled in my hand sprinkled forward with the motion. Dren reached out with his free hand, lightning fast, and caught one in midair. Then while looking at us, he grinned, showing fangs, and brought his hand back toward his mouth, surely to lick from wrist to fingertip.
He stopped just as I realized I was looking at him. Not through his fingers, but through a hole that had appeared in the middle of his palm, as a portion of it crumbled into ash. His fingers teetered, and then one by one fell down, dusting like so many smoked cigarettes.
“Your blood—” he began, staring at his hand, transfixed, as the ash crept down his hand.
“Is spiked with pope water,” I answered him.
He looked at me for a moment, then reversed his hold upon his sickle, and brought it whistling down—not on us, like I’d feared, but through the meat and bone of his own wrist. The remnants of his hand dusted in midair.
“Let us pass, Husker,” Ti said. Dren didn’t answer. He was panting in anger, staring at his mutilated arm.
“How could you husk me without getting my blood on you?” I asked. My hand that wasn’t pressed against Ti found more blood to use as a weapon, just in case.
Dren put his sickle down. “Later,” he answered.
I sagged against Ti’s chest. Things were going gray. “Yes. It is.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Ti mounted the stairs two at a time when we reached them. I could see the trail of ash and gobbets of flesh behind us as we made our way back to Providence General’s lobby.
Zombies don’t have look-away like vampires do. And so while I could see the mass exodus of vampires pouring out of Providence General, no one else could. All they could see was Ti, holding me, as he strode through the bays of the emergency room, shedding ash and meat. People were picking up phones. I hid my face in Ti’s armpit as people tried to take our picture.
“Stay back!” Ti growled, and the good employees of Providence General did so. We made it to the ambulance entrance, just as a dark-tinted car flew into the drive.
Ti opened the back door, and we sank into the car together.
“Drive,” Ti commanded as he closed the door, and Sike’s car raced off.
* * *
Ti cradled me to his chest. I clung to him, feeling parts of him sift away like hourglass sand. And then I started to feel like that too—drifting and lost. “Edie, wake up,” he said.
“Are we there yet?” I asked without opening up my eyes.“No. Edie—”
“Are these my guts, or yours?” I asked, nestling my head into his shoulder. Moving hurt less and less now. Hooray for me.
“Mine. Maybe. Edie—just be quiet for a second, will you?”
“No,” I said, but then was quiet anyhow.
“Edie, I’ve got to go.”
“No—”
“At the meth lab, I’m sure people saw me. But even before that—there’s only so many times you can get burned and survive and your coworkers don’t think it’s strange. Add that to the fact that I don’t age—and that that entire hospital’s staff saw me there tonight, looking like a Frankenstein—”
“No one believes night shift.” I curled my hand into his chest. He was warm compared to me; I felt so cold. “I’m tired, Ti. You can’t leave me. Not now.”
“I’ve got to. At least for a while. But I don’t know how long that’ll be.”
“This—that—that’s not some euphemism for dying, is it?” I looked up at him. His face was blurry, and I didn’t know if it was all his new skin or my tears. “Because you—that’s not fair.”
“I’m not dying, Edie. Just going. We’ll get you to the hospital first, though. I’m not leaving until I know that you’re okay.”
“Don’t go.” I hid my face against his chest, felt the flesh there give beneath me. Another wave of exhaustion and chill pulled me down. “We’ll talk about it when I wake up, right?”
“Good—” I heard him begin, and I knew he was about to say “good night” or “good-bye” but I didn’t hear enough.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
“Human.”
Things felt strange—but they smelled familiar. Too familiar.
“Human.”
Something hit my face, hard. I blinked, and saw a frizzy blond halo looking down. “Human?”
“Tired,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure I made a sound.
“Human, do you want my blood?”
I blinked my eyes open. There were two Y-connected IV sets over me, draining red fluid in. “Blood?”
“That’s mortal blood. I am offering you more.” A skinny wrist blotted out the emergency room lights. A red gash appeared on it, and then blood on this, bright red, like a seam.
I closed my lips firmly.
“I will not force you.” Anna’s strong fingers grabbed my chin, twisted my head, and made me focus my attention on her. “But if you die, I will be very upset.”
My vision faded, and she disappeared. “Ti?” I asked. “Anna?” I looked around. County’s emergency room was full; I could hear screaming children, crying mothers, the clamor of twenty different languages, all the hustle and bustle of life and death around me.
And I was just another stab wound on a Saturday night.
I flagged down a nurse by attempting to crawl out of bed. “Call Meaty. On Y4.”
She looked unsure. Of course she was, I’d just given her the name of a person she’d never met, and a location she’d never been to.
“Extension six-sixty. It’s important. Tell him Edie Spence is here,” I pleaded.
She could have ignored me, but she didn’t. I saw her go for a phone as I relaxed back into bed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
I woke to the smell of cleanser and floor wax. I knew Ti was gone. Through half-lidded eyes, I could see red nails.
“Edie Spence?” a nurse I knew was day shift said nasally. I pretended to be asleep. Apparently I’d lived, or this was a very authentic hell.
She didn’t care enough to roll my eyelids back and check for pupil responses, which was good, because with her acrylics she might have taken out my cornea. Instead she poked me in the chest a few times, and I did my best to lie there like a lump of unresponsive meat. I heard her leave and knew she’d chart: Withdrawal to pain? Negative.
After that, I shifted around in bed like a sleeping person might. I was sore from stem to stern, had two peripheral IVs in my left arm, and there was an abdominal binder around my midsection. Other than that, I didn’t really hurt.
Not physically at least. But now that I was awake, memories came rushing back. Ti, saying he was going away. How long had I been out for? Long enough, some part of me knew. I had to fight the impulse to curl up in bed; it’d be a dead giveaway. So I lay there limp and ragged, waiting for sleep to come again. One of the drips going into my arm was a narcotic—I could see the bright pink “Dose Check!” warning stickers on its bag.
Wait a second. I knew how IV pumps worked. I could—
“Way to get the most out of your County-sponsored health insurance policy,” said a familiar voice. I started, caught with one arm reaching for the IV pole, and turned to see Gina’s smiling face.
“Gina? What’re you doing here?”
She grinned down at me. “I saw you move some when I walked by outside. I thought I’d come in and check.”
“But why’re you on day shift?” I strained to look past her shoulder. “If that day shift nurse comes back, I’m still dead, okay?”