Chapter Eight

 

Zeke

 

It’d been a few days since I’d reached Santa Lucina and I was bored.

Really bored.

And I couldn’t get that girl out of my mind.

For a while, I’d stayed near the ocean, wandering between the beach and the water while waiting to see if there was any change in the latter that would signal she’d returned. Nothing much had come of it, though. The town was on edge about something, and the tourists on the beach were less friendly than usual. Most met any questions I asked with muttered responses or suspicious replies, while a few had attempted to call the cops, seeming to find the fact I was looking for an auburn-haired girl something worth that level of alarm. After the third girl I’d tried to talk to had been hustled off by her friends – with plenty of wary glares in my direction – I’d given up and decided to head into town, just on the off chance I’d see anything.

Which was when I heard the ambulance.

I’d been walking past the downtown shops, enjoying the early morning and hoping to catch a glimpse of that girl or anyone who might’ve been with her, when the howl of sirens cut through the air. The sound drew closer and then an ambulance shot past the intersection in front of me in a blur of white sides and flashing lights. I followed, and found the vehicle pulling to a stop only a few hundred yards down the street.

I hung back, studying them from the corner. People rushed from the ambulance and ran into the store, while several others jogged to the back of the vehicle and threw open the doors to retrieve supplies. My brow furrowed as I watched them race in with a stretcher, and I wondered if I should just leave.

And then they hurried back outside.

It was the girl. She lay on the stretcher with blood covering her face and some kind of padded brace pinning her head, but it was her. The blond guy trailed the stretcher from the shop, with the other girl from the park clinging to his arm like it was the only thing keeping her standing. Police surrounded them, trying to ask questions, and then an older boy came out of the store, angrily interrupting the barrage with questions of his own.

The people loaded her into the back of the ambulance, the doors slammed and then they rushed to the front. The vehicle sped off.

I stared. She’d come back, obviously, or maybe she’d never left, but now it looked like someone had attacked her.

And from the blood, they’d done a pretty good job of it too.

By the shop, the other girl was crying, while the older guy yelled something at the police about how the girl could die, so they needed to follow her.

A curse slipped from me in Yvarian before I could stop it. I didn’t know what had happened and I didn’t care. She was dehaian. She was possibly dying. It was true she was surrounded by humans, which was bizarre in itself and meant that if I brought any kind of help beyond what they’d understand, I was risking the exposure of our people, but dammit, she was in trouble. I couldn’t just do nothing.

And I wasn’t going to let this all end with ‘and then some bastard killed her’.

I ran for the coast.

Streets blurred around me, taking too long to pass and stretching a million miles to the horizon. As the beach finally came into view, I swerved, avoiding the morning tourists and aiming for the most empty area I could manage. Wet sand sucked at my feet as I raced into the waves, and as the breakers rushed in, I dove, letting the water swallow me whole.

The change swept through me, dissolving the clothes I’d been too rushed to bother removing. Ignoring the debris, I kicked hard, rocketing forward and staying low so no trace of my fin broke the surface. The shallows sped by, and then I turned, racing for the supplies I’d hidden farther up the coast.

Minutes slid past, and for all my speed, the miles never seemed to end.

I barely knew this girl.

Annoyed, I pushed the thought away. So I had to know someone in order to help them? Since when had that been a prerequisite of giving a damn?

The underwater portions of the cave came into view. Ducking inside, I swam up through the seawater that never dropped below the lower half of the place. Water-worn hollows and ledges scored the walls, and the sun didn’t penetrate beyond the low archway that formed the entrance, providing countless shadowed hiding spaces. I drew up fast at the far end of the cave and started climbing, my tail becoming legs as I went.

My bag was where I’d left it a few days before, tucked into my usual hiding place on one of the uppermost ledges. Yanking it open, I scanned the contents, fear spiking for a moment at the thought I’d left the medicine behind when I’d packed.

And then I spotted the container at the bottom of the bag. Letting out a breath in relief, I sealed the bag again and then slung it over my shoulder, knowing I’d need the clothes inside when I returned to town. From the ledge, I dropped into the water and took off, racing back to Santa Lucina again.

I really hoped she didn’t die before I got there.

Grimacing, I pushed myself to go faster. If she died, then I hadn’t broken too many laws and Dad wouldn’t be too pissed. And if she didn’t, then the laws be damned, I’d have helped save her life. Dehaian medicine was powerful, drawing as it did on magic from deep beneath the water, and given how she’d looked at that store, the sieranchine in my bag was probably the best chance she had.

Assuming it didn’t send her into shock and kill her, since that was its effect on non-dehaians and she wasn’t exactly like anyone I’d ever seen.

I kicked harder, rocketing through the water. I’d be careful. Try a bit at first and see how she reacted. She was dehaian, even if she did weird things to the water. She should be fine.

The beach was annoyingly busy by the time I returned.

Glancing around beneath the waves, I hesitated, listening hard to the sounds from above the water, and then I darted toward what seemed like the least occupied stretch of sand. At a thought, my scales shed away, becoming legs and a dark imitation of swim trunks. Slipping from the water, I hurried up to the beach, hoping no one wondered why they hadn’t seen me go into the water before I’d come back out – or why I had a bag over my shoulder in the ocean.

But I didn’t have time to worry about it. She could be dying.

Jogging as fast as I dared over the sand, I fumbled a shirt and sandals from the bag, and then tugged them on as I headed for the street. At the stoplight, a cluster of people waited, several of whom eyed me skeptically when I hurried up.

“Where’s the nearest hospital?” I asked the least tourist-looking one of them.

The woman blinked. “Hospital?”

“Yes, hospital. Where’s the closest one?”

She hesitated, and then pointed. “A few miles that way.”

The stoplight changed, and the walk symbol popped up.

“Thanks,” I called as I took off running again.

Streets and miles and maddening stoplights passed, until at long last I rounded a corner and the white walls of the hospital came into view. Slowing, I adjusted the bag on my shoulder and strode inside.

It wasn’t going to be easy to get near her.

I scowled, shoving the thought away. I’d figure something out.

Following the signs on the walls, I headed for the emergency department. The building was a maze, and if it hadn’t been for the sense of the ocean behind me, I would have lost all awareness of direction by the time I reached the right place.

In the entryway, I hesitated. Across from me, a young brunette sat at a desk with brass letters overhead that marked the area as reception. A pair of large sliding doors to my right led to the outside – an entrance I hadn’t seen at all when I’d reached the building, but that I’d damn well use to get out of this labyrinth once I was done. In the glass-walled waiting area nearby, the two guys from the store sat, casting annoyed glances to the television I could hear playing in the room and looking as though they could barely keep from pacing. An older man and a police officer were with them, the latter of whom was still asking questions from the look of it, though the pair who’d driven her away in a car several days before were nowhere to be seen. Another cop stood by the double doors to my left that blocked off the remainder of the emergency department.

His gaze slid toward me. I looked away.

“Can I help you?” the woman behind the desk asked.

I hesitated. I couldn’t hope to sneak past them all.

“Yeah, um…” I glanced to the cop again, and tried to keep my voice low. “I’m here to see the girl who was brought in a bit ago. The one who’d been hit in the head?”

“And you are?”

“A friend.”

The caution on her face was blatant. “Well, I’m sorry, but she already has visitors and only two people are allowed to see a patient at a time.”

“I won’t be in the way. Please, I just want to check on her.”

She glanced to the police officer by the doors and then back to me. “I told you. No more than two visitors at a time. Now, if you want to wait, I’ll need to see some identification. Otherwise…”

Her eyebrow raised pointedly.

I looked back at the cop. Identification was out of the question and waiting wouldn’t do any good. The girl could be dying. I only needed a few uninterrupted seconds to maybe change that.

Slowly, I let out a breath. There was one way. It was illegal. And wrong. But if I only used a little, the woman would most likely be fine and recover long before anything turned life-threatening.

And I could really be running out of time.

Trying not to feel like a bastard, I turned back to her and smiled. “Listen,” I glanced down at her name tag. “Becky? I, um…”

I reached out fast, taking her hand. Her brow drew down in alarm and she jerked back, attempting to pull away, but the small twist of magic had already touched her skin.

Her expression flickered with confusion, and then melted into the sort of adoration that only the truly sick among us dehaians would enjoy.

I made myself keep smiling as I let the magic carry through my voice as well. “I need to get in there. Can you open the door?”

She frowned, still fighting it, and then her head twitched in a nod. Her hand fumbled for the button, and the doors swung back to let me through.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling nauseated.

The police officer watched me as I walked past. A desk formed the corner of two adjoining halls ahead, and beside it, I could see the girl from the store and another woman, both of them talking anxiously to a doctor. Curtains enclosed the space behind them, though a second later, a nurse pushed the fabric aside to carry out a tray, revealing the girl lying on a bed.

I hesitated. I could feel the police officer’s gaze still on my back, and if I headed straight for her, he’d be certain to stop me. But another curtained area was not too far away, and through a gap in the fabric, I could see that it was empty.

Trying to look purposeful, I marched inside. A few heartbeats passed, and then I leaned my head out again.

The cop had turned back toward the waiting room, and the doors were swinging closed behind him. I looked to the women and the doctor. He was taking them to a lighted wall panel farther down the adjoining corridor, where transparent black sheets showed side views of a human skull.

I strode down the hall and slid into the curtained space holding the girl.

She looked like hell. Tubes ran from her nose and arms to plastic bags on wheeled poles and beeping machines on the wall. Beneath the bandages wrapping her head, one side of her face was puffy, the skin blue and purple and red in turns, and the other side bore a vicious gash surrounded by swelling of its own.

I couldn’t keep myself from staring as I crossed to her bedside. It didn’t make sense. She electrocuted the water, yes. She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever seen, dehaian or otherwise.

But why would someone do this to her?

Exhaling sharply, I forced myself to focus. Reaching into my bag, I tugged out the container of sieranchine and then thumbed the lid from its top. With a quick glance to the curtain enclosing us, I pulled a shirt out as well. Covering my fingers with the fabric, I scooped the shimmering gel out before setting the container on the wheeled stand nearby. Turning her arm over gently, I wiped the wet shirt across the inside of her arm, testing her reaction.

Her skin glistened, gaining a hint of golden iridescence that faded almost as quickly as it had come.

But she didn’t go into shock or show any sign of a negative response.

I doused the shirt with medicine again and swiped it across her face and neck and every bit of uncovered skin I could reach.

She stirred on the bed with a soft sigh.

I stepped away and shoved the t-shirt and container back into my bag. My skin tingled as a bit of the sieranchine touched it, and hastily, I wiped my hand on my shirt. I’d probably end up with a killer headache just from that contact – strong really was an understatement for that stuff – but that was a problem for later.

Her bruises were already diminishing. The gash on her cheek seemed less red, and the swelling appeared to be going down.

I let out a breath and then glanced to the curtain again. She’d be alright. I’d still get answers to all my questions – eventually, anyway – and she’d be alright.

Now for getting out of here.

Cautiously, I peered around the edge of the curtain. By the lighted panel, the women and the doctor still discussed something. Slipping across the adjoining hall, I walked quickly back toward the waiting area and past the cop, heading for the exit.

Across the room, the doors to the outside opened. An ambulance sat in the driveway, its lights flashing, while doctors rushed by the sliding door, a stretcher with an old man on it between them and a dozen other people trailing behind.

All of whom were now blocking my path.

“H-hey wait,” Becky called to me from the reception desk, her voice vague with confusion. “You weren’t… you shouldn’t have been…”

My heart hit my throat and I made a sharp turn for the hall that I’d taken through the hospital a few minutes before. I’d really held back earlier. The effects were wearing off faster than I’d expected.

Which meant Becky would be fine and that was great.

Except now she was calling out to the cop.

I rounded the corner, barely keeping from running as I retraced my steps to the main exit. I hadn’t seen any police near the hospital entrance, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t call any to come stop me. I’d just been in the water, and thus could probably handle even two or three weeks out of it, but that wouldn’t fix all the other issues being taken into custody would create.

There had to be another way out of here.

I strode down the hall, cursing the hospital maze.

“Hey you!”

I didn’t look back. Through a glass door ahead, I could see daylight and I hurried toward it. Footsteps pounded down the hall behind me. I shoved the crossbar on the door and rushed out into the fresh air.

And then I ran.

I could hear the cop shouting, first at me and then into his radio, but I’d already reached the corner. Veering around the turn, I took off down the next street. Intersections appeared and fell behind me in rapid succession, and people stumbled away in surprise as I sped by. Over the whistle of the wind in my ears, I listened for sirens, grateful not to hear any until I’d finally reached the road opposite the beach.

And by then, it was really too late for them.

I dashed across the sand and into the water, leaving Santa Lucina behind.