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“What the hell?” Daniel hissed.
I gave him the nutshell version of what happened, up to the entrance of Dr. Seth Northman.
Understandably, he wasn’t very happy with me. “Sometimes you do the dumbest shit, Zoë.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, I know.”
“What in the name of all the gods were you thinking chasing after him?”
He gives a crap. He’s genuinely concerned. Don’t eat him alive for basically calling you stupid. I inhaled and exhaled in slow breaths. “I thought I would catch one of these asshats, so we could move forward with this case.” I could almost hear his mouth moving silently around the words he wanted to say. “Don’t. Just don’t. Just do your job, Daniel, and find the body. Hopefully you’ll find some clues.” You’ll definitely find some scales. “Please.”
Maybe it was the please. Maybe some of my pain and anxiety was threading through my voice. Maybe he actually loved me more than he hated me. “All right, I’ll go over there myself right now, me and Mike. Take care of yourself, Zoë. If you need me....”
“Thank you.” I hung up the phone before the tears burning my eyes ran down my face.
Lucy slid her hand into mine. “Zoë, look at me.”
I did as she asked and handed her back her phone.
She pocketed it without breaking eye contact. Something was wrong. “Zoë.”
“Quit saying my name, Lucy. It’s just you and me, and whatever it is, I know it’s bad, because you’re trying to calm me down before I even get riled up.”
She smiled, but tight-lipped and with only minor lift at the corners. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know how to tell you.”
You know that tingling sensation you get in your nose when you’re about to cry, but you’re holding it in because you don’t want to cry yet? Yeah, so me. I grabbed her other hand. “Tell me.”
Lucy shook her head. “Let me show you.”
I thought she meant something magickal, but instead she lead me to the nurses’ station.
“Hi,” she said to the nurse behind the desk. “Remember me?”
The nurse gave her a big smile. “Oh, Ms. Holloway, did you get something to eat?”
Lucy shook her head. “No, I ran into her downstairs.” She pulled me out from behind her.
The other woman’s smile faltered. “You must be Ms. Zoë Delante.”
“I am.”
“I’m so sorry.”
What does one say to that? ‘Thank you’ seemed inappropriate, given that I still had no clue what was going on. The pit in my stomach soured as I noticed the intensive care unit signs. “Lucy?”
“I’m going to take her back,” she said to the nurse, “if that’s all right.”
The nurse nodded and pushed a button, which buzzed on a nearby set of double doors.
“Come on,” Lucy said. “It’ll be okay.”
In my head, it was decidedly not okay. He had to be alive, because they didn’t keep dead people in the ICU. They didn’t keep people who were on the mend in there, either. What had I done to him?
Lucy pushed open the double doors, and I followed only because she was still holding one of my hands. The numbness creeping out of my midsection had spread in a stranglehold to the rest of my body. The doors closed, and a weighted silence surrounded us, broken only occasionally by mechanical beeps and my breathing.
I was thankful to be dressed, courtesy of Lucy’s foresight and a pause on our trip up. My shoes moved silently across the tiles I was counting.
Weird, I know, but it provided an odd comfort for me. Numbers made me feel safe. They were solid and didn’t change. Two plus two always equaled four. Right now, counting the tiles passing beneath my feet meant ignoring the millions of possibilities racing around in my head. It would be bad enough without help from my overactive imagination.
Time slowed beyond those doors, and though I counted forty-seven tiles, it felt like an eternity before Lucy stopped in front of one of the rooms and announced, “We’re here.”
I looked up from my feet, and she took a step to the left. The door was plain white, except for the brightly framed whiteboard full of information. I scanned it, but only his name registered.
One downward push of the lever handle, and I was in a sparse room, though framed prints of famous pictures hung on the walls and curtains adorned the wondows. The vibe was definitely not homey, with a network of cords and machines posted like mechanical bookends around the hospital bed.
“Oh, Jacob.” I moved across the room to him and slipped my hand into his.
He didn’t move.
I closed my eyes against the rising tide, chin quivering, and held onto him as though he might be yanked out of my grasp any moment now. It took a few minutes of steady breathing to be able to look at him again, but eventually I opened my eyes and absorbed the situation.
His head was wrapped in bandages, kind of like a bad cartoon from my childhood. “Poor Wile E. Coyote.” His left arm was set in a blue cast, and he wore that nasal breathing apparatus under his nose, but everything else about him seemed normal, as if he were just sleeping in a bed—a strange bed.
I touched his face with my fingertips and kissed him gently on the forehead. “What kind of coma is he in, Lucy?”
She leaned against the doorjamb. “It’s medically induced. He had a lot of internal stuff going on—broken ribs, ruptured spleen, stuff like that—and while they got that mostly under control, they decided it was best for him to stay under until some of that heals up.”
“So he’ll come out of it eventually.”
She came up behind me and started to wrap her arms around me, but I shrugged her off.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
“Zoë.” She put a hand on one shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”
I moved from beneath her hand and stepped closer to the head of the bed and away from her. “Get away from me before I hurt you, too.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
I shook my head. “Yes, it is. All of this.” I gestured toward the love of my life. “This is wholly and completely my fault. Don’t take this from me, Luce. I did this to him. If I’d called for backup before we went into Sera’s house, we could’ve gotten you out another way. He wouldn’t have set off the traps, I wouldn’t have been marked, and we wouldn’t have stupidly tried to undo naga magick. There would’ve been no explosion, and he wouldn’t be laying in the damn bed pumped full of drugs and in a damn coma.”
“Zoë.”
“Lucy, no, you don’t get it. How long until someone figures out that you’re important to me? How long until you follow me into some stupid, bad situation?” I turned, tears rolling down my cheeks. “You are my best friend. I would never forgive myself if you got hurt like this, just to be my best friend. So I am begging you, please, walk away. Not forever, but for right now.”
“Zoë, no! Are you kidding me? You need me more now than ever!” She reached for me again, and I backed away. “You’re serious.”
I wiped the tears off my face. “Something’s wrong with me. I need to sort it out, and you need to let me.”
Fat tears welled in her eyes.
“Lucy, please don’t cry!” I held my hands out to her, and she grabbed them like a lifeline.
She pushed away the tears with her shoulders. “Not forever.”
“No, I couldn’t live without you forever.”
She pulled me in for a big hug. “If you need me....” She echoed Daniel’s earlier offer in a whispered breath in my hair.
“I know. Thank you.”
With one last squeeze, my best friend turned and walked away.
