The vial of Elixir fell from my fingers, shattering on the rooftop.
“Eva!” I screamed, racing towards the fire escape. I bounded down the stairs, as fast as I could go, Obadiah running after me.
The steps were icy and I tripped, the wet snow flying up into my face, but I didn’t stop. Obadiah was ahead of me now. He’d already reached the ground. We were both moving as fast as we could.
But was it already too late?
Through the bars of the fire escape I saw Eva crumpled on the ground. Her arms and legs were splayed out at crazy angles; her hair had sprung loose from her ponytail and lay spread out around her like a dark halo. She wasn’t moving.
No. Please, no.
I reached the last step of the fire escape and jumped down, landing in the snow.
I rushed over to her frantically, taking her arm, rolling up her jacket sleeve, pressing at her wrist, searching for a pulse.
“Please, Eva,” I begged, pressing down into her skin. I didn’t even know what I was searching for—I’d never taken a pulse before. Eva was the nurse, she was the one who knew this stuff. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely find it.
But then I felt something under my finger. It was small, fragile, delicate as the fluttering of a newborn bird. But I had felt it. A pulse. I bent down, pressing my face against Eva’s, and felt the warmth of her breath on my neck.
“Eva!” I nearly started crying in relief.
But she didn’t respond. She was unconscious. She was breathing at least—but still, this was serious; I knew that much.
Over my shoulder I could hear Obadiah on the phone. He had already called 911. The thing I should have thought to do, he’d already taken care of. He was good in a crisis, I realized as I watched him.
“She fell,” I heard him saying to the 911 operator. “I don’t know, at least fifty feet. No, I didn’t see where she fell from. We just saw when she hit the ground . . .”
I heard him giving the address of the club.
Obadiah and I were both standing side by side, mute and in shock when we heard the sound of a siren in the distance.
“They’re here,” I said, exhaling a long, ragged sigh. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath all this time.
Red and white lights flashed against the brick facade of the building, reflecting off the snow. The ambulance barreled down the street. I ran towards it, skittering on the ice, waving my arms, afraid it would run over Eva on the ground. But the ambulance jerked to a stop, right in front of Obadiah’s building.
Two men in yellow jackets emblazoned with the letters “EMT” jumped from the van, carrying a gurney between them.
They rushed over to Eva. One of the men placed some kind of clear plastic mask over her nose and mouth. The other man put his hands on both sides of her head, cradling it.
I could see flashes of light on Eva’s face—every time the red siren light spun around to illuminate it. Her face was slack, blank—yet somehow peaceful. She was still unconscious.
Obadiah and I walked towards the EMTs and stopped just a few feet behind them. We stood there, shivering, watching them work—feeling helpless.
“Is she going to . . . be okay?” I asked one of the EMTs, my voice cracking, but I stopped short. I didn’t want to say the word I was thinking. Die?
The EMT shook his head.
“There’s no way to know that,” he said. His voice was surprisingly gentle for such a large man. “But it’s definitely serious. The doctors will be able to give a better prognosis. We are going to take her straight to the emergency room.”
I looked at Eva—her body limp in the EMT’s hands. Was she going to wake up?
I felt so powerless. I just wished I could help. But there was nothing I could do, nothing but stare and stand there uselessly as the EMT went to work on my best friend.
They had immobilized her and were slowly raising her onto the gurney. Eva’s face was still blank, expressionless. Her body was as limp as a doll in their arms. Her normally robust frame seemed so small and frail. Something deep in my gut twisted—I wished we could go with her into the E.R.; I didn’t want her to have to go through this alone.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. My head jerked up. It was Obadiah. He didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to. His hand on my shoulder seemed to be imbued with silent empathy. He just stood there, quiet and warm, behind me. Slowly I raised my hand and wrapped my fingers around his. I felt like crying.
But then we heard a second siren. A cop car had pulled up behind the ambulance, across the street from the building. Obadiah and I looked at each other, neither one of us understanding. Two police officers in the navy blue uniform of the NYPD stepped out—a short, stocky man with a red face, and a tall, Hispanic man, both in their early thirties. The guns in their waist holsters bobbed up and down as they walked towards us.
The short one extended his hand but didn’t smile.
“Officer McCleary,” he said, giving my fingers a rough squeeze. “This is my colleague Officer Diaz.” The other man gave a grim nod.
“Who called 911?” Officer McCleary asked. His voice was flat, emotionless.
“I did,” Obadiah replied.
Officer McCleary began to ask us questions. It was just the basic stuff, name, address, etc. . . . While we were talking, Officer Diaz made notes on a clipboard. The paper was pre-printed with the NYPD insignia—it was some kind of official form.
“Who is she?” McCleary asked, pointing at Eva’s body on the gurney. The paramedics were loading her in to the back of the ambulance.
“Eva Morales,” I spoke up. McCleary turned to me.
“And who are you?” he asked.
“I’m her roommate . . .” I paused. “I’m her friend.”
“So, what happened here?”
I looked at Obadiah—and I began to panic. What were we going to tell him? We couldn’t tell him the truth—that we’d seen Eva fly. He’d think we were nuts!
“I . . . I don’t know,” I stammered. Maybe I could tell the cops some of what happened and just leave out the flying part?
“I was here with Obadiah. We were on the roof. Then Eva texted me she was downstairs. I was supposed to meet up with her. She said the guy she was with had just gotten her a drink . . .”
Come to think of it, where the hell was Ramsey? I hadn’t seen him. Did he know about Eva’s fall? Surely he’d heard it. A crowd of people had gathered around the doorway outside the club and were gawking and whispering at the scene. If he was still inside, I should find him and tell him. I might not like the guy, but he deserved to know what happened. Would he want to come with us when we visited the hospital?
Or had he seen Eva fall and fled? Maybe he thought people would think he pushed her, and he’d gotten scared and ran? It was cowardly but it sort of made sense—people would think that, because who would believe him that Eva had been flying? No one knows how they will handle a crisis till the moment they’re faced with it. But maybe he was still inside at the bar, and he really didn’t know? I should go in and try to find him.
“So what happened next?” McCleary asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“I heard Eva scream,” I said miserably, “and then I saw her falling. We rushed down to try to help her, but she’d already hit the ground.” A lump was forming in my throat as I tried to recount the story. “I don’t know what happened—it must have been an accident.”
“Where did she fall from?” Officer Diaz asked.
Crap, what was I going to say? How could I possibly answer that question in any way that made sense?
“I . . . I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t see where she fell from.”
I turned my head towards the building. There was the lower fire escape, the one we’d passed on our way up.
“Maybe from there?” I said, pointing helplessly.
“Why were you two up on the roof, anyway?” McCleary asked.
The tone of his voice sounded suspicious.
“I wanted to show Miss Jones the beautiful view of Manhattan,” Obadiah said.
“Bit of a cold night to be standing on the roof enjoying the view, don’t you think?” said McCleary. There was a hard edge in his voice.
“We weren’t up there for very long,” Obadiah said. “We were about to head back downstairs when we saw Mabily’s friend fall.”
Diaz jotted something down on his clipboard and frowned.
McCleary turned to us.
“Miss Jones and Mr. Savage, would you please come with us? We’d like to take you two down to the precinct to answer a few questions,” he said, pointing to the patrol car.
I didn’t understand why they needed to take us to the police station, why they needed to question us. Surely they didn’t think there’d been any kind of foul play?
“What about Eva?” I said. “We can’t just leave her.” I looked back towards the ambulance. I could see through the windows of the van that one EMT was in the back with Eva, while the other was in the driver’s seat. They were starting to pull away, the wheels churning up snow.
“Can’t we go to the hospital with her?” I asked McCleary.
“She is going to be taken straight to the emergency room,” he replied. “You can’t go in there. Are you her emergency contact? Someone from the hospital will call you if and when it’s okay for her to have visitors.”
His voice was firm, but not unkind, and I nodded.
“I just don’t want her to be alone when she wakes up,” I said, but the ambulance was already pulling out of sight. Obadiah put his hand on my shoulder again.
McCleary interrupted.
“Sir, ma’am, if you would come with us to the vehicle please?”
I didn’t see why any of this was necessary, but you don’t argue with a cop.
“Okay,” I said. “But . . .”
McCleary turned to Obadiah. “We will need to obtain a warrant for the Crime Scene Unit to investigate the premises.”
Obadiah nodded, and I could see the fear in his eyes. What if the cops found a way into his secret room?
A huge crowd of gawkers had poured out the door of Obadiah’s club. They were all humans—the supernaturals seemed to have slunk away at the sight of the cops. The human crowd was loud—talking in fearful voices and pointing at us and the officers.
“We’d like to talk to you further, but we can’t do that here,” said McCleary, gesturing towards the noisy crowd of bystanders. “If you’ll please come with us. Once we get to the precinct, the investigating detective will want to meet with you and ask you a few questions as well.”
Investigating detective? Crime Scene Unit? I didn’t understand. This was an accident, and they were treating us like we were criminals.
“Before you enter the vehicle,” said officer McCleary, “we need to do a pat down for security purposes.”
“But . . .”
My voice trailed off. If I started arguing things would only get worse for us. Mutely, I raised my hands over my head and peeled back my coat as instructed, and winced, shivering, as Officer McCleary patted me down, his fingers rough on the delicate fabric of my dress. I felt suddenly self-conscious about what I was wearing. The way McCleary looked at me, it was like this short dress was “evidence” of something. I scowled up at him.
“Aren’t you supposed to have a female officer do this?” I asked as he ran the backs of his hands over me.
“Ma’am, in the absence of a same-gendered officer on the scene, an opposite-gendered officer is legally allowed to perform a noninvasive pat down for security purposes,” said McCleary. It sounded as if he was quoting that statute verbatim.
At last he was done, and I quickly buttoned my coat, crossing my arms tightly over my chest. I watched Obadiah undergoing his own pat down with Officer Diaz. Obadiah was shooting daggers at McCleary—the officer’s touch had been professional enough, but I could bet they didn’t manhandle ladies like that in Obadiah’s time. The chivalry was sort of touching.
“No weapons,” I heard Diaz say.
Headlights flashed on the brick wall of Obadiah’s building as a second cop car pulled up. Two more NYPD officers got out.
“Miss Jones, you’re going to come with us. Mr. Savage, you’ll go with my colleagues.”
The two new officers approached us.
I exchanged a panicked glance with Obadiah. They were going to drive us to the precinct in separate cars—and probably question us separately too—to see if our stories matched! Obadiah and I hadn’t had any time to talk since Eva’s fall; we’d had no chance get our accounts straight. What were we going to tell the cops? We couldn’t tell them the truth—that Eva had been flying! Surely Obadiah knew you couldn’t say something like that? But if he said she flew and I said she’d fallen—or if I said she’d fallen from the fire escape and he said she’d fallen from the roof—if our stories didn’t match up, this was going to seem really suspicious.
I wished I could do something, say something to Obadiah, at least mouth the words “she fell off the lower fire escape, right?” but now all four officers were staring at us. There was no way to communicate, not even a wink.
The two new cops were leading Obadiah over to their patrol car. He turned back and looked at me over his shoulder. I could see the fear in his eyes.
“Miss Jones?” said McCleary. He had opened up the passenger door to his. Diaz was already inside.
What could I do? You don’t argue with a cop.
Feeling sick in my gut, I got in.