“Jake, I don’t know how you did this, but you are going down for all of it,” DS Grimly said.
“What a stupid bitch,” Aza’s voice whispered from somewhere nearby.
Jake glanced over his shoulder. He was just a short jaunt from the open doorway, pinned open by Jaina’s foot. “She’s here,” Jake said. He knew by now that it wasn’t her physical body that was in the alley, but some piece of her. Or some piece of what was inside her.
“Jake, it’s over,” DS Grimly said.
“You don’t understand,” Jake said. “Hell, I don’t understand. But we can figure this out together. First, we get Dani.”
Movement near one of the corpses caught his attention. The dead woman’s hand flinched, just enough to be seen. The wind picked up as well, swirling the smell of piss and blood and shit into a miasma of death.
Jake watched as DS Grimly tightened her grip on her weapon and raked it from side to side. “Jake!” she shouted.
It rose up from the ground, gathering like a fog. The dark thing. Jake almost didn’t notice at first, but it had gotten more difficult to see the bodies, as if they were underwater. He felt it next, cold and inviting, threatening to drag him down into the unknown. Both heat and cold battled to tear at his exposed flesh, vying to be the one to destroy him.
“Jake?” DS Grimly asked.
“You see it, don’t you?” he asked.
“See what?” she asked.
Jake gestured at the black void that writhed all around him, burying the bodies in nothingness. It was too dark to be seen, only felt, like a sense of déjà vu; a vague understanding of something that can’t be understood. “You feel it, then?”
DS Grimly looked at him, weapon lowered, but before she could answer, a wall of black surged upward and crashed into Jake’s chest. The dark thing hurtled Jake backward, into Jaina, and then bowled them both over, into the hospital. The door slammed shut.
Jake rolled off Jaina and sprang to his feet. He raced to the door and locked it.
“What the actual fuck?” Jaina asked.
“You saw it, right?” Jake asked.
“Thanks for almost getting us shot by a delusional cop,” Jaina said, standing up. “You didn’t honestly think she would side with us, did you? You know she’s going to report everything. Now the feds are going to want us, too.”
“You didn’t…?”
“Didn’t what, Jake?” Jaina asked. “Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?”
Jake shook his head and scratched at his ear. “Nothing. Let’s go find Dani.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Monday 12:28 a.m.
Aza woke when she hit the floor. The sudden jolt and pain it brought was enough to shock her fully awake, but she didn’t bother moving. It was dark in the hospital room she’d chosen to rest in. Drawn curtains, lights out. Those were her orders for the few hospital staff too weak-minded to flee.
How she’d gotten there—on the floor, in a crowded hospital—was a blur. Dani had been there, as had their guardian angel. Her head ached and she was still tired.
“Shut up,” Aza said to the darkness. “I know he’s here.”
She didn’t need the whisperings of the unseen to tell her that DS Anderson was in the hospital, on a suicide mission for a daughter that despised him.
“Dani!” Aza shouted.
Aza shouted several more times before the door to her sanctuary opened, admitting a slice of artificial light and tall girl with an armload of snacks.
“The light,” Aza said, shielding her eyes.
Dani kicked the door shut behind her. “Well, now I can’t see, you silly bitch,” she said.
“Take two steps and sit your ass down,” Aza said.
Aza’s eyes were adjusted enough to see the outline of Dani as she sat down, losing most of her armload. Aza grabbed a bag of something—chips, maybe.
“Some dude just bought all this stuff for me,” Dani said. “I hardly had to ask. I was just looking at the vending machine, thinking about how I could get something for free—break it or something, I thought—when this dude just steps up and offers to buy whatever I wanted.”
Aza ripped open the bag and reached in to find pretzels. She tossed the bag aside.
“There’s a bag of mini muffins here somewhere,” Dani said. “Chocolate chip. Here, try this. I think my eyes are adjusting.”
Aza accepted the bag and tore into it. The scent of chocolate chip muffins hit her and made her salivate. She wolfed down the bag in two bites. “Mmm. Fuck, that’s good,” she said.
“There’s more. Here. Wait, nope, that’s gummy bears. Here. Two more bags of muffins. That’s all there was. But I told the dude who bought them to go check other vending machines.”
Aza held on to the two new bags, but didn’t open them. “You’re much…cheerier than before,” Aza said.
Dani’s silhouette shrugged. “Well, I’m still tripping balls over everything that’s happened…with you…and us killing…but I’m all hopped up on soda right now, so I’m just trying to have fun.”
A bag opened in the dark and Dani let out a moan of pleasure.
“Shit, do you think we should…?”
Aza waited a beat, then asked, “Should what?”
“Mmph, huh?” Dani asked around a mouthful of food. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I…never mind,” Aza said as she scratched at her ear.
Aza’s head felt fuzzy. She opened one of the bags of muffins and brought one to her mouth. She hadn’t slept or eaten much since her escape. At least not with the regularity to keep a person sane. Even so, it was hard to recall one moment to the next. She had dreamed… No, she had lived through DS Anderson. She remembered that bit, at least briefly. She could sense him. It had to be his voice she thought she’d heard. Some remnant of their supernatural connection lit up by proximity.
“Where are we?” Aza asked.
“Hospital, dummy,” Dani said.
“Don’t be a cunt,” Aza said. “I will still kill you.”
“It was a joke, psycho. We’re right where you said to go. Seaside City General Hospital. Floor thirteen. Room thirteen. You were super sleepy, I guess, and I had to carry you in here. You said you just needed to rest for a while. I’ve just been wandering. People are so nice here. Oh! And there are pictures of me on the wall near the nurses’ station. You, too!”
“What?!”
“We’re like famous. Well, technically, we’re missing, but when I first saw it, I felt like I was famous. One of the nurses says I’m all over the news. She wanted to call the police.”
Aza dropped her muffins. “You didn’t let her, did you?”
“Uh, no… I don’t think so?”
“Is that a fucking question?”
Dani shrugged. “The cops are already here, anyway. You’d know that if you weren’t busy taking a nap.”
Aza sprung to her feet and raced to the window. She pulled back the blinds and was greeted with a wash of red and blue lights amid a sea of uniforms thirteen stories below.
“How long have they been out there?” Aza asked over the sound of snack wrappers.
“Dunno. At least an hour or so,” Dani said.
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long,” Aza said. “They’re going to come busting in here any minute. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”
Dani laughed. “Nah, they won’t. Not after the notes we sent them.”
Aza turned from the window. “We?”
Dani crumpled up a wrapper and went to stand at the window with Aza. The flashing lights blanketed them in weird, shifting shadows. “Mm-hmm,” Dani said, face pressed to the window. “Me and some patient down the hall thought it up. He was a funny man. Talked a lot like you. Told me what to write. Bunch of different stuff. Make the cops confused. He said it’d give us the privacy we needed. We practically have the whole hospital to ourselves!”
Aza stepped away from the lights and sirens, deeper into the shadows of the roo
m. She needed their comfort. Their strength. Aza could remember living in DS Anderson’s skin while she slept, at least briefly, but she couldn’t remember doing the same to anyone else. Had she journeyed into the mind of the patient Dani spoke about? Her head felt cluttered. Too many thoughts vying for recognition. It was a battle that only served to leave her dizzy.
“Is it here?” Aza asked. “Have you seen it?”
“Seen what?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Is it still here?” Aza looked around the room, yearning to see the abstract form of the dark thing.
“Uh, no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The thing!” Aza shouted. “My power!”
“Yeah, I still have no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe you need more muffins?”
Aza rubbed her temples as she sat on the edge of the bed. Maybe she needed more sleep.
“Shit, it’s locked. Building must be on lockdown. All the security doors are likely to be sealed.”
Aza groaned as DS Anderson’s voice threaded its way into her mind from out of the shadows. It hurt like a spike being driven into her ear.
“Shut up,” Aza said.
“Got to be some way around. Service stairs or something.”
“Shut up!” Aza shouted at Jaina Winter’s disembodied voice.
“We don’t have time to dick around. Might just have to break it. We need to find Dani before the whole of the Federation pours through the front door.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Aza shouted. She stood up, but then quickly fell when her legs buckled.
Something grabbed Aza’s arm. It was cold and foreign. Eyes pinched shut against her growing headache, she flailed, kicked, and screamed. Something hard pressed against her forehead and the room lit up like she’d fallen into the sun. Her eyes were still closed, but she could feel the light trying to sear her eyelids.
“I’m not going to ask you again,” a new voice said. Aza thought she knew its owner, but the pounding in her ears made everything sound funny.
A sound like thunder stole the light away and bathed Aza in numbness. She jolted forward with a gasp and opened her eyes.
Dani was sitting on the floor in front of her, holding her nose. Blood ran over her lips and down her chin, where it collected to fall in drops like crimson rain.
“I think eww bwoke it,” Dani said.
“It’s your fucking dad,” Aza said.
Dani let go of her nose. The drip of blood quickened. Drip, drip, drip. “He’s here?”
Aza nodded. “And in here,” she said, tapping her temple. “Looking for you.”
Dani wiped her nose on her shirt, leaving a huge streak of red that stood out even in the darkness. The distant throb of emergency lighting reflected in her eyes. Dani stood and offered a hand to Aza.
Aza stared at it a moment, thought about slapping it away, but knew she needed the help. She took it and was pulled upright.
“He’s such a control freak,” Dani said. “Always has to butt into my life. Like, fuck off, Dad, I don’t live with you. I have my own life now. You’re so lucky you don’t have that problem, Tragedy. Family, I mean.”
The hairs on Aza’s neck stood up and energy flowed renewed throughout her body. Her head still throbbed, but she felt better than she had in…whenever. “I don’t have that problem because I fixed that problem.”
“Whatever,” Dani said. “You’re still lucky. And that thing you do to make people listen to you. Awesome.”
Aza couldn’t be sure if she could trust her memories any longer. Dani seemed not to know things she certainly should have. The thing. Why they were in the hospital.
“Fucking flapjacks,” Aza exclaimed.
“Still hungry?”
“No,” Aza said with a wave of her hand. “I remember why we came here. To the hospital.”
“And…?”
Aza stared into Dani’s eyes, but saw genuine confusion. Was Dani crazy or was it Aza who was losing her mind? “Peter,” Aza said.
“Oh, right,” Dani said. “I forgot he was here. Oh, poor Peter. My mom wouldn’t even let me see him before. I would have been quick. I just wanted to see him for a second.”
Aza grabbed Dani by the shoulder, silencing her. “And that’s just what we’ll do. Come on, let’s go see your big brother.”
“Half brother.”
“Whatever. Family is family, right?”
Dani skipped over to the door and opened it, letting in a beam of artificial light that took Aza’s breath away. She stumbled to her feet, dreading being left alone again. She needed something to ground her in reality.
“Dammit,” Dani said just outside the room. “I don’t have anything to give him. No card. No teddy bear. No nothing.”
Aza squinted and begged her eyes to adjust. Her temples pulsated, each beat of her own heart echoing between her ears.
“Are you even listening to me?” Dani asked.
Aza looked at her, recognized her face, but could see nothing else. Blood still ran from Dani’s broken nose. It didn’t seem to bother her, but it captivated Aza.
Drip, drip, drip.
Aza’s ears weren’t sensitive enough to hear the falling blood drops, but her mind magnified it to an orchestral level.
“Hello?” Dani asked, waving a hand in front of Aza.
Aza reached for her, felt Dani’s shoulder, and let her weight rest against the stalwart girl.
“Tragedy?” Dani asked.
Drip, drip, drip.
“Oh fuck,” Aza mumbled. “I’m going to be—”
Aza vomited, coughed once, and passed out to the sound of dripping blood.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Monday 12:46 a.m.
“Stand back,” Jake said, wielding a fire extinguisher.
“Fucking Christ!” Jaina shouted as she jumped out of the way just in time to avoid being brained by the improvised weapon.
The glass of the security door cracked, but didn’t give. The impact sent shock waves up Jake’s arms, and he nearly dropped the fire extinguisher. With a howl, he struck again, using the metal canister as a battering ram. After the fifth desperate strike, the glass and encased wire mesh of the window gave way enough to admit an arm.
Jake flung the extinguisher aside, reached through and slapped the push-bar on the other side of the door. The door opened, forcing Jake to exhale with relief. He hadn’t been sure it was going to open from that side either.
“Small miracles,” he said, pulling his arm back and flinging open the door.
“Jake, you’re bleeding,” Jaina said, grabbing at his elbow.
Jake held up his arm to find he’d cut it on the broken glass. Blood ran from a pair of shallow cuts, collected on the underside of his forearm, and dripped to the floor.
Drip, drip, drip.
“Shit!” Jake shouted at the sudden pounding in his ear. Like dripping water or blood, it echoed for a moment until Jaina grabbed his face and made him look her in the eyes.
“We should get that bandaged,” she said. “Good thing we’re in a hospital.” Jaina smiled at the poor joke.
Jake pushed her aside. “I’m fine. We don’t have time to—”
“Hey!” a man’s voice bellowed from further down the hallway.
A rotund man in a rented security officer’s uniform jogged toward them, drawing a pistol from his belt holster, and waving at them.
Jake held his ground, but displayed his empty hands. The guard stumbled to a halt a couple of paces away. Sweat ran over his face and marked his shirt with dark stains at the neck and armpits.
“Since when do you rent-a-cops get guns?” Jake asked.
“Get on the ground,” the guard said.
“No thanks,” Jake said, lowering his hands to his sides. “We have better things to do.”
“I will… I will shoot you,” the guard said.
Jake smirked, trying his hardest to remain calm, though he wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through the man�
��s skull and be on his way. Such a violent thought didn’t even unnerve him anymore. It was no more remarkable than daydreaming of what to make for dinner.
The guard took a step forward, keeping the gun pointed at Jake’s face. Jake stepped up to meet him. The gun barrel was mere inches from his forehead. Jake could see the tremor in it.
“If you’re going to threaten me, at least aim that thing at my chest,” Jake said. “It’s a far larger target. Even at close range, you want to make sure you hit me, right?”
“Shut up,” the guard said.
The gun barrel lowered. Slowly. Shakily.
Jake stared into the guard’s eyes and then moved, slapping the gun in one direction as he twisted his body in the other. The gun swung clear of Jake’s body and he closed the gap, taking the sweaty, fat wannabe to the floor. Jake leveraged his shoulder into the guard’s chest as he fought to disarm him. Jake grabbed the guard’s wrist and twisted. The gun went off, but it hadn’t been pointed at him.
With a tug, Jake wrenched the gun free and sent it skittering away on the tile floor. The guard balled his empty hand and punched Jake in the jaw. It stunned Jake for a second, but unearthed a primal fury in him. Whether simple adrenaline or something deeper and darker, Jake reared up like a viper and struck.
Jake couldn’t see his own hands, but the impact of each punch sent shockwaves up to his temples. The more he struck the guard, the more he wanted to strike the guard. He was insatiable. A blur of fists. Snarling and spraying the air with a mix of his own saliva and the guard’s blood.
Something moved across his blurred vision, giving Jake pause. He froze, fists raised, the guard’s head no longer recognizable.
“Jumpy one, ain’t ya?” Aza asked, leaning over Jake’s victim.
Jake spun and lunged, wrapping an arm around Aza’s shoulder, and driving her into the floor. Jake’s head bounced off the hard tile and took his breath away. Without wasting a moment, he grappled to keep hold of his nemesis, but when he’d gotten himself upright again, she was gone.
Jake whipped back and forth, looking for some sign of the small girl. The long hallway gave no clues as to her whereabouts or her strange appearance. He hadn’t imagined it. He’d felt her. Hadn’t he?
Dear Tragedy: A Dark Supernatural Thriller (House of Sand Book 2) Page 21
