Meanwhile, Saintly and I are just trying to figure out how we’re going to get out.
Before Dev kills Delia.
Before something in here kills us.
At long last, Dr. Sterling says he will check back in later, “when you’re calmer,” and steps out into the hall. We are momentarily left alone in the tiny, whitewashed room.
Finally, we can talk. “Just nod your head or shake it,” I whisper, “I don’t want them to hear you talking to me.”
She nods her head almost imperceptibly.
“It wasn’t the people at Westgate that scared you, was it. It was the ghosts.”
She nods again and looks away as her eyes fill with tears.
“And I’m sure it doesn’t help to know they’re real. However hard it was for you to believe you were insane, it must be even harder to know all this exists.”
She looks up at me, surprised, and shakes her head once, emphatically, no.
“No?” I’m sure I misunderstood her. She has to regret finding out the truth, right?
But her eyes hold mine and she raises one finger, as inconspicuously as possible, and points at me.
And, without her even saying it, I know what she means. It’s worth having all the horrors be real, if whatever we have is real, too.
But what do we have? A million yes-or-no questions cross my mind: Did you mean it romantically when you said you loved me? Are you still in love with Deveraux? I mean, I know you can’t love me because we only just met, but if I were alive, would we… Could we…
I do my best to press the thoughts out of my mind. We have enough to deal with right now without making it all more complicated. For now, I will have to settle for knowing Saintly and I are here together, knowing nothing can force us apart.
But as soon as the thought crosses my mind, I know I’m wrong. A nurse bustles in with a tray. In the center is a cup of water and another of bright red pills. From the alarmed look on Saintly’s face, I can guess the truth.
“They’ll keep you from seeing me, won’t they?” I say.
We’re about to be apart after all.
Chapter 26
Saintly
I stare at the little red pills in the cup. God, what a relief they used to be! I couldn’t take them fast enough, and I’d beg for more the second they started to wear off. Of course, that was back when I thought all this was just an illusion, before I knew the ghosts existed even when I couldn’t see them.
Now it’s all I can do to keep myself from slapping the little cup right out of the nurse’s hand. I certainly wouldn’t be the first person to do it. People resist meds all the time.
But they don’t get away with it. The nurses are experts at telling if you swallowed. Think, Saintly, think. Or at least stall.
“I’m feeling much more stable now,” I say in what I hope is a very together voice. “I don’t think I’ll be needing those after all.” I try for a friendly smile.
She stares at me, unimpressed. “I don’t order the meds, hon. I just bring them. This is what the doctor ordered.”
“Yes.” I pull myself up straight. “I understand, but I’m feeling much better now. If I could just talk to the doctor…”
“Dr. Hollis is off duty. He’ll be back on tonight. Dr. Press will make rounds at noon.” She holds out the little white paper cup, the red pills gleaming like poison berries.
I raise my voice as much as I dare. “I’m telling you, I don’t need them. I haven’t taken them for weeks.”
“And tonight you…” she reads off the chart notes on the clip board by my bed “attempted suicide by jumping off a three-story tower?”
That wasn’t my fault! I want to scream. The ghosts possessed me! But saying the voices in your head made you jump off a tower probably won’t get you out of a mental hospital.
What will is cooperation. Playing along. Playing sane. At least, that’s what got me out of here the first time. But playing along takes time, and time is what we don’t have. I look out the darkened window. There are no clocks in the hospital rooms—one of the subtle tortures of being on the ward—and no windows in this room, but I know it must be morning by now. How much time do we have? What if the medication makes me sleep all day? What if I sleep through New Year’s Eve? The thought of it—of waking up to realize my best friend is dead and Dev is long gone—is enough to make my stomach flip. I can’t risk it.
The nurse is getting impatient. “Would you like it in some other form? I could request a suppository, or an injection…” She speaks with chipper professionalism, but I know it’s a subtle threat meant to call my bluff.
“They’ll make you take it one way or another,” Jesse says, “and you should probably sleep anyhow. You must be exhausted.”
The nurse reaches for the call button beside the bed. She wants backup, just in case.
“How long does the medicine last?” I ask hurriedly.
I see her resisting the urge to smile. “Do you need to be somewhere?”
I narrow my eyes. “How long?”
She proffers the pill cup again. “You’ll be due for another dose in eight hours.”
Eight hours of lost time. Eight hours when Jesse and I can’t even confer on a plan.
“I’ll figure something out,” Jesse says with forced confidence. “You sleep, just for a little bit, and I’ll wake you, I promise.”
I cast a worried glance at the bed. I never thought a stiff hospital bed would be a temptation, but it is. Even without the medication, my body feels heavy with fatigue. My shoulder muscles have been stretched to the breaking point and my hands are still red and raw, burning with the memory of gripping the icy glass of the clock. It would be such a relief to give over to the medication and rest, to forget about everything for just a little while.
But I can’t stand the thought of not seeing Jesse. Without her, I’ll feel so alone.
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” she says. “Even if you can’t see me, I’ll stay.”
I nod just a little, so the nurse can’t see. Jesse looks tired, too. Looking into her serious gray eyes, I have the urge to pull her over to the bed with me, to wrap myself around her so I know she’s there and sleep curled up together. But of course I can’t. Would she even let me? I feel my face go hot at the thought.
Quickly, I accept the little cup of pills and the matching cup of water.
Jesse lays a hand on my shoulder as I swallow them and stands vigil by my bed as I crawl in under the starched white sheets. “I’m still here,” she tells me. “I’m still here.” And it helps, it really does. But as the pills start to take effect and I watch Jesse fade from view, all I can think is you’re still here, but so are they.
I may not be able to see the ghosts, but I know they can see me.
Chapter 27
Jesse
I wait with Saintly until her eyes close and I think she must be asleep. The nurse must think so, too, because she bustles off on her rounds, but as soon as we’re alone, Saintly opens her eyes again. It clearly takes effort and I can tell by the unfocused way she looks at me that she probably can’t see me anymore, but her whisper is still full of urgency.
“I forgot…” her voice is slurred with sedative.
“Shhh…” I say, unsure if she can even hear me. “Tell me when you wake up.”
“There’s a beast, a monster…”
“I know. I saw them as we came in. I’ll be careful.”
She shakes her head groggily. “No, on the third floor. Bigger. Stronger. It can…”
“What?” I say. “What can it do?”
“Move… stuff. And the lights…”
Is this a nightmare, or the truth? Is there a difference anymore? “Move what? Physical things?”
She nods, her cheek brushing the white pillow case. “It… breaks things.”
Breaks things. I feel a strange envy for the monster, whatever it is. I wish I could break things. I can go through walls, but Saintly can’t, and we’re never going to get
out of here without breaking through something. “Could I talk to it? Would it help us?”
She manages to open her eyes again and I can see the alarm in them. “No! You can’t.”
“Why?” I ask. “What would it do?”
But the medication is too strong for her. Her eyes are starting to close again. “Promise,” she whispers. “Promise you won’t go.”
“It’s okay,” I soothe, but I don’t promise. I try to pull the sheet up over her shoulder, but my hands can’t grasp it. I’m too tired. So I lean down and let my lips brush the top of her head. I am not solid enough for the kiss to connect, and I doubt she could feel it if I were, considering how asleep she is now, but I can feel her—the warmth that is slowly returning to her body, the floral scent of shampoo still clinging to her damp hair. It makes me wish I could stay here with her, but instead I’m about to do the one thing she just told me not to do.
I’m going to look for the monster.
Because, dangerous though it might be, there’s a chance I could talk it into helping us bust out of here.
And because I don’t have any other plan.
“I’ll be back,” I whisper to her sleeping form, and I slip out through the cool metal door.
It isn’t hard finding the monster, now that she told me where to look for it. It’s just a matter of climbing to the third floor, then playing a game of “hot or cold,” the way I used to as a kid, when my dad would say “you’re getting warmer” as I got closer to the thing I was looking for. Except now, instead of trying to find the warm, I’m trying to find the cold—that eerie, shivery feeling that goes along with ghosts, like stepping into a draft when there’s no draft there. And not only cold, a sort of despair, too. A pit-of-the-stomach feeling, a heaviness, as if the air itself has weight. Of course, that feeling is everywhere in Westgate, but certain pockets of it are particularly deep and strong. I follow them like currents, moving on instinct down the narrow halls to a darkened room where the damp, cool air feels saturated with hopelessness.
It doesn’t make me want to go inside.
I think of the inscription on the door of Deveraux’s castle. Bold, be bold, but not too bold… Am I being too bold? Stupid? But what exactly am I afraid of? I’m already dead, right?
I take a deep breath and force myself through the door.
And immediately want to take a step back out. I guessed the monster was in there, but nothing can prepare me for the actual sight of it. For one thing, it’s huge. Its dark bulk fills half of the small room. I had expected it to stand upright, like the human it must have been, but instead it squats, more like a giant toad. Its face is big and broad, all flared nostrils and wide mouth. I can see its jagged teeth, yellow in the half light, and the sharp glint of its huge yellow eyes, but the rest of it blends into the darkness, like it’s made of melted black wax.
Or maybe still-melting wax—its folds seem to undulate even as the creature sits still. There’s an oily sheen to its skin and, although it looks quite solid on top, the bottom of its body ends in black tendrils of dirty smoke that curl like tentacles. I feel nauseated just watching it.
“Hello?” I whisper. Can it speak human language? Was it human once? It seems strange that I haven’t changed at all—not my hair, not my clothes, not anything—while the ghosts of Westgate have become… something else. Something inhuman. They’ve been warped by their anger and pain—they’ve become it—and I feel suddenly grateful for the fact that I can’t change. “Can you understand me?”
It stares at me with eyes the color of piss. Its voice is heavy, like the rasp of a corpse being dragged through dry leaves. “What do you want?”
I decide to come right out with it. “I want your help.”
The monster’s laugh is mostly a growl. “You want me to help you?” There’s the faintest memory of a Russian accent in the way it speaks. “You want me to help you?” Its voice is so loud, it seems impossible that the rest of the hospital can’t hear it.
And they certainly must hear the crash. The monster’s tentacle swipes out from under its folds, surprisingly swift, and knocks a tray of metal instruments off the bedside table. They clatter across the floor.
I freeze in place, my heart slamming in my chest. Certainly someone will come investigate.
But no one does. In a mental hospital, maybe the crash blends in. Or maybe they hear it and just don’t want to know what made it. Either way, the door behind me stays shut.
And I want to walk right through that door. But, I remind myself, the fact that the monster can throw things is exactly why I’m here. “Yes,” I say as calmly as I can, “I need your help to get a patient out. It’s urgent. They have her locked in her room on suicide watch…”
The monster’s nostrils flare wider in its flat face. “She will kill herself?”
“No,” I say quickly. “She won’t, but they think—”
“But you did, yes?” The monster oozes toward me. It moves slowly, but I can tell by the intensity in its eyes that it could catch me if it tried. It tilts its massive head, studying me. “I smell it on you. There is a certain scent to those that kill themselves.” It closes its eyes and sucks in a deep breath. “A certain… sweetness.”
I force myself to stand my ground. “That was a long time ago.”
“But it lingers, doesn’t it? It stays with you.”
I swallow hard. I’d love to run, but I can’t. I need its help. “I noticed,” I say shakily, “that you can move things.”
“Oh you noticed that, did you?” The monster’s wide lips curl into a smirk. Its liquid eyes shine with what must be humor. “I can do many things.” To demonstrate, it rams one enormous fist through the nearest wall, like its shoving it down someone’s throat, deep enough to grab their heart. It must be grabbing something electrical because the lights in the hall outside stutter. A little pocket of hope expands in my chest. That talent could do a lot toward thwarting the security system.
“Really impressive,” I say evenly. “How are you able to do it?”
Its smile widens. Its teeth look more like the jagged edges of splintered bones. For a second it coils itself, then it leaps—except it’s not so much like a leap, more like watching something viscous and black being poured from one place to another very quickly. In seconds it has congealed in a crouch behind me. “I can do these things because I eat other ghosts.”
So that’s why Saintly was trying to warn me. I should have guessed. It gets stronger when it eats another spirit, the same way the midnight girls get stronger when another one joins their number.
I’m in way over my head. But the monster doesn’t have me trapped—I can still move through the walls.
“I’ll just follow you,” the monster says calmly, as if it can read my mind “and I will eat you, and then I will eat your friend.” Its thick tongue crawls across its lips, leaving a trail like snail slime.
“No.” I know I shouldn’t react, but I can’t stop myself. “You can’t eat her because she’s not a ghost. I told you, she’s not going to kill herself.”
“She will,” it says simply. “By the time I’m done with her, she’ll want to die.” I think I hear a flash of sadness in the monster’s voice. “They always do.”
I square my shoulders. “You can’t do that.”
Now I’m sure I see the resignation in its eyes. “That’s all I do, all I am. It’s nothing personal, you know. Everyone has to eat.”
The monster thrusts out one oily tentacle and grabs me, pinning my arms to my sides. The feeling is like being sunk neck-deep in tar. It opens its mouth like a snake unhinging its jaw, and I can see the ropes of spit clinging to its back teeth and the tongue like a thick, black slug. There’s a putrid sweetness to its breath.
“My friend will be pissed!” I yell, “She’ll find you! She’ll send you into the light!”
The monster pauses, its jaws still poised around my head. It pulls me out so it can speak. “What?”
“It’s true,” I say quickly.
“She knows how to send us into the light. She’ll do it.” I mean it as a threat. I want the monster to look horrified, taken aback. Instead, a very different emotion touches its ugly face. Interest. Longing. Maybe even hope.
It holds me up above its head and gives me a little shake. “Don’t lie to me, little girl.”
“She can!” I hesitate, unsure whether to shift my strategy, but I have nothing left to lose. “She’ll send you, if you want her to. If you help us.”
It’s a gamble, but as sure as the words are out of my mouth, I know I’ve said the right thing. The monsters eyes fill with hunger—not for me, for something deeper. “I’m listening.”
“All you have to do is help us escape from here. Short out the security alarms. Break the locks on the doors. Help us get a car or something. Then she’ll send you into the light.”
The monster’s black eyes narrow. “And if she doesn’t?”
“I have no doubt you could hunt us down,” I say, and I mean it.
The monster lets me drop to the floor. I land on my butt.
“Do you swear to me?” The creature towers over me, so close the smell of its breath makes me dizzy. “Swear she will!”
Will she? Can she, even? I mean, Dev believes Saintly could send a ghost into the light, and she came very close to sending me, but she has never actually done it all the way.
I take a deep breath. This is no time for hesitations. I mean, there’s a first time for everything, right? “I swear.”
I hold myself very, very still. The monster flares its nostrils again, as if it could smell a lie. Then it sits back, satisfied. “Take me to her now.”
Leading the monster to Saintly goes against every instinct I have. I know the creature is her greatest fear, the thing she hated most about Westgate. I know it might be tricking me, and that, even if it isn’t, it could change its mind at any moment.
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