Andi spent the majority of her shift going for ICU MVP. IVs were placed, endotracheal tubes were suctioned, medications were crushed, poured, hung, teeth were brushed, and if there was a patient that needed cleaning, no matter the mess—even that one GI bleed, shitting blood—she helped clean them. She even managed to make sure that there were no expired IV lines in use on the floor.
Sheila caught her pacing by halfway through the night. “Are you trying to make ten thousand steps or something?”
“Why?” Andi asked innocently, holding empty suction canisters.
“Because it’s either that, or you’re on uppers.” Sheila cocked an eyebrow at her; she had seen Andi earlier, looking disheveled outside. Andi didn’t want her charge nurse thinking she’d been getting high on something before coming onto her shift.
“No,” Andi quickly lied. “I went to Jones and Shah before our shift and had a Vietnamese coffee.”
“It’s three a.m.”
“I had the biggest size.”
“That stuff is rocket fuel.” Sheila snorted. Vietnamese coffee was treated like the gold foil it was wrapped in was real gold come three a.m., but few nurses were brave—or stupid—enough to drink a whole cup on their own if they ever wanted to sleep again. “You should know better.”
“Look, just because I’m the most awesome nurse you have here doesn’t mean I’m immune from having made bad decisions.” Andi grinned at her.
Her charge nurse considered her again for a long moment and then laughed. “Well, cut it out. You’re making the rest of us look bad.”
“Fine, Mom,” Andi said in a particularly teenaged voice, which made Sheila laugh even more and let her pass.
It wasn’t until she’d taken a rinse-off shower the next morning, with her hair safely up to save her blue streak until she could get Sammy’s help to freshen it up again, that she got into bed to text Damian. The only thing she held off on was taking an Ambien. She’d made a couple impulse purchases on eBay before while drifting off to sleep before on the drug, so she knew how powerful it was. If she was on it, she wouldn’t trust herself not to tell him secrets.
Home. Safe. In bed.
If she’d been smarter, she would’ve just set her phone face down instantly, pounded the Ambien, and closed her eyes, nightmares be damned. But she wasn’t. She hesitated for a crucial moment, and he texted her back.
Ryana’s up.
And now she was glad she hadn’t taken the Ambien, as she sat higher in bed. Is she okay?
She will be now that she’s here.
So did she tell you what happened back home?
The usual, he quipped. And that place isn’t home anymore, he corrected her.
Sorry…“the place that you hate where you came from” takes too long to type.
My only home is at your side.
Andi rubbed a hand over her face and swallowed. When he said things like that, it didn’t even matter if he’d had her followed. Which, maybe he hadn’t? It’d have been unlike him to not confess after being outed, she thought. Then again, maybe that strange woman hadn’t reported her failure to do whatever to him.
But suddenly, she was glad she hadn’t sent the text in her drafts—because if the woman had been freelancing as an attacker/asshole somehow, there was no way Damian wouldn’t be over right now, laying atop her as she slept—for her own safety—and possibly other things.
And there’d definitely be no way he’d let her out of his sight long enough to go meet with her uncle tonight.
Normally I would have things to say about that, Damian…but I had a long shift. I’m going to go to bed now. I’ll text you when I’m up again, though.
Good night, princess. See you at the stroke of midnight.
When he put it like that, it made her feel like a reverse Cinderella. Like she was the normal girl right now, and then in a few short hours, the clock would strike, and her princess-like nature would be revealed.
G’night, dragon, she texted back, with an emoji blowing a kiss.
Her nightmares were standard issue at this point. Was it wrong to be jaded by things that happened in your sleep? If that were a thing, how come those kids in that Freddy Krueger movie couldn’t manage it? Blah-blah-blah-chasing, terrorizing, the sensation of falling, the feeling of being rendered limb from limb by some sort of skinless demon-dog. There was really only so much of it a girl could take. So, when Andi woke up and still felt exhausted—that was just something to slap coffee on, like a liquid bandage—she dabbed foundation underneath the dark circles around her eyes.
She wouldn’t want to disappoint her family now, would she?
Up, she texted Damian simply. See you in a few short hours.
See you in a few long-seeming ones, he texted her back, and she set her phone down. From here on out, she needed her wits about her, and Damian was too distracting.
Andi looked at herself in her mirror, praying that Damian was good to his word and not looking back, because if he saw her, he’d instantly know something was up. She was wearing all black for the occasion—black flats, black slacks, and a black silk blouse. It was one of the nicest shirts she owned, a great irony seeing as she’d never wear it again if she could help it because the last thing she’d worn it to was her mother’s funeral. She fanned her hair out over her shoulders, gave her makeup another once-over, and went out to sit on her brand-new couch to wait for the driver that would surely come.
Andi didn’t recognize the man who knocked on the door or the car that was waiting. Just as well, because if her uncle had sent Elsa and the car she’d tagged previously Damian might’ve known what was up. But her uncle had probably guessed as much, and he’d known Andi wouldn’t pepper some random man with questions.
Instead, she sat silently in the back of the car, biting on her lower lip, trying to figure out what she’d ask. It was hard. There were so many things, and each question could lead to others, unfolding in her mind like reverse origami as she tried to prepare herself for all possible scenarios—until the car stopped.
They were there.
Wherever there was.
She looked around. The car was parked in front of a warehouse on a block of warehouses that all looked abandoned. The kind of place she knew from watching TV with Sammy, you could wrap a body tight with a tarp, and no one would find it until it was flyblown.
I’ve already worn this blouse to one funeral, what’s another? she thought, and got out of the car.
The man lead her silently into the warehouse they were parked in front of, through doors and down ill-lit halls until they reached a door that he gestured she should open. She wiped sweaty palms on her thighs, and then pressed in.
“My dearest Andrea,” her uncle said, as her eyes adjusted to the low lighting.
“Uncle,” she acknowledged him, allowing herself a quick look around. He was surrounded by a series of low tables which had designs carved upon them underneath glass tops, and many more chairs, but they were the only people in the room so far.
He walked over to her, equal to her in height, and stood close enough that she could’ve touched him if she wanted to—but she didn’t. Not anymore. No more hugs, no more closeness, just answers.
“You came alone as promised.”
“I did.” She felt foolish for admitting it at the moment, but it was too late now. “Because you said that there were things that you could tell me. About Mom.”
“Yes. So many things. Did you finally look at the gift Danny gave you?” The photo album didn’t feel like a gift to her. She nodded, and he continued. “Then you must be burning with questions if I know you.”
“Not questions,” she denied him. “Just one.”
He laughed. “Well, then, this will be a short trip. Ask.”
“Did she enjoy lying to me as much as you do?”
Uncle Lee looked like she’d punched him. Her whole life she’d been smaller than everyone else, pocket-sized, bite-sized, whatever you wanted to call it. She couldn’t fight him with her hands, but she could with her tongue, and it was so satisfying to see her land a blow on him.
“Your mother loved you, Andi,” Uncle Lee said, sounding affronted on her mother’s behalf.
“Such an odd way she had of showing it. By hiding all of her past from me, especially the part where she apparently lived for over a century and used to hunt down creatures that could talk.”
“It was a different time,” her uncle said, as he folded his hands together sagely. “And it was over a century. Many centuries, actually.”
Andi blinked.
“Go ahead,” her uncle said and gestured to the chair across from him. “Sit.”
Reluctantly, Andi sat down.