I stared in his eyes and he trailed off as the room turned bright around me. All the color in the room faded away, until the only colors left were the ones rippling above everyone’s heads. There were so many people that they all started to merge together, but his was red and orange. His was angry and violent. Usually I eased them back, turning them to a calm blue, but not that time. That time I contained them and forced them back.
“Before you what?” I asked. It was like someone else said it. He just stared at me, his face going slack.
“Before you what?” I asked again. He just stared, mouth hanging open a little.
There’s no time for this. I need to find her.
I looked past him and pushed the next few people in line until they just stared too. I turned to the woman behind the desk.
“Tell me where she is.”
The woman’s eyelids drooped and she started tapping on her computer. She looked down at the screen, reading something there.
“She was admitted through the ER. She’s currently awaiting emergency surgery.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the available ORs are full and she’s being kept stable until—”
“Where is she now?”
“Third floor. East wing.”
I walked away and took the elevator up to the third floor, where I followed signs to the east wing. It was crowded up there too. In the hallway there were gurneys parked in rows along the wall. There were people lying on them, but none of them was Karen.
I started trying the rooms along the hall one at a time. The first room had an old man in it, lying on a gurney and not moving. He looked dead. The next room had a fat, middle-aged woman with an afro.
“Are you a doctor?” she whispered. I shut the door.
One door down, a man in a dark blue jumpsuit was standing outside. He had a black case in one hand and was leaning against the wall, watching a little screen he had in his other hand. When he saw me heading toward the door next to him, he started to say something, but I cut him off.
“Are you a doctor or a nurse?”
“I’m a technician.”
“Then leave me alone.”
He went back to looking at his little screen. I opened the door and went in.
The room was dark. There was a gurney in there surrounded by a bunch of machines. One of the machines was beeping slowly.
“Karen?”
She didn’t move, but one of her eyes opened a little and looked over at me. It was her.
“Karen, shit …shit …”
I turned the light on so I could see her. Her face was all purple, red, and black. Bandages covered one eye, and under a big piece of bloody gauze, her nose looked flat. The one eye that could still open had tears in it. The white part had turned red.
“Zoe,” she said, her mouth barely moving. Her jaw was broken and some of her teeth were gone. I thought I was going to be sick.
“Don’t cry,” she said, but I couldn’t get control of myself. My hands were shaking.
“Karen, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said, wiping snot away.
“It’s not your fault.”
It was my fault, though. I knew it would happen. From the first time I saw her, watching me from behind him while I made him go to sleep, I knew. I saw the bloody eye. I knew this was coming.
“Come here,” she whispered. I went up to the bed and stood next to her.
“Someone beat him …”
“What?”
“…someone …beat him …up …he …”
I shook my head no. She groped with one hand, and I took it.
“Karen, you’ll be okay. You’ll be—”
“I’ll never forget …the first time …you came down …”
“Me neither,” I said, but I already had, a long time ago.
“I knew …you were special …”
Her one open eye fluttered and then looked around, confused. She looked like she didn’t know where she was.
“I’m going to get somebody to help you,” I said.
“This …is not because …of you…. It was my …”
She drifted off and a tear, pink with blood, rolled down over her swollen cheek. She coughed and something came up. She winced and swallowed.
“I’m sorry I kicked you out….”
She coughed again and made a face. She was in pain. I stared at her until the room got brighter. Her colors were very dim. Little bright spots swirled here and there, like they didn’t know where to go. Tiny orange spikes flaring up, like glowing coals. There was pain—physical pain, but more than that. I’d never realized how much there was, how much of it she kept covered up.
I smoothed the lights back, calming them. I focused on the hot-looking spikes and cracks until they dimmed, turning cooler. Karen’s face relaxed and got a little dreamy. She managed a smile.
“…you …do that …?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks …”
There were a million things I wanted to tell her right then. I wanted to tell her how much she meant to me and how much she helped me. All the shit I put her through, I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean it. There were so many things I thought I should say, but I didn’t. I just stood there.
The floor felt like it moved for a second, and I grabbed the bed to get my balance. The room got darker.
Shit. Not now …
Everything slowed down, and I felt cold. The tips of my fingers and toes started tingling. My head got heavy.
No …not now …I need to be here now …
“Zoe?” I heard Karen say.
“Karen, I—”
The darkness moved in like black smoke. For a second, all that was left was Karen; then it covered her too. The floor moved again.
…how much longer?
Almost there …
The words flashed in the dark. No sound, just words. The smoke cleared just a little, and I felt myself moving through the fog. I heard footsteps on metal, but it was muted and faint. I was running. The walls were sprayed red, and down on the floor I saw empty clothes, wet with blood.
Not now …I have to go back….
I moved through a big, metal door and out onto a walkway. There was a railing to my right, and I could see a huge open space down below. There were coffins down there. They were stacked up high, arranged in rows. I slipped and saw a man’s hand grab the rail. People were starting to move down below. They started yelling, but I could barely hear them, like I was underwater.
“Stop!”
I heard gunshots. I was moving again. There was another heavy metal door up ahead, with a wheel mounted on it. As I got closer, I glanced down to where the coffins were stacked and saw the dead woman, the one from the green room. She looked up at me. There were tears in her silvery eyes.
The doorway opened into a dark room. There was a single light overhead. It shone down on a bed where someone was lying. I ran up to the bed and saw that it was the mean-looking woman, the one with the black lipstick that cornered me in the elevator at the FBI. She was covered in sweat, big muscles standing out. She had on a hospital johnny. Her legs were spread apart and her ankles were locked in stirrups.
“You’re too late!” she screamed.
Something black and wet, something living, something dangerous, shot out from between her legs. Cords and veins popped out of her neck. I lurched forward as the man’s hand came hammering down on her heart, a blade held tightly in his fist.
“You’re too l—”
Everything went black. The screaming stopped. All I could hear was a steady tone.
I opened my eyes. I was back in the hospital.
“Karen?”
She was still there, lying in the bed in front of me. I’d grabbed fistfuls of the sheets and was leaning over her.
I tried to focus again. While I looked at her, the room got bright again, but I couldn’t see her colors.
“Karen?”
I realized then that the steady tone was coming from the heart monitor. I looked harder, until the room got so bright the color leached out of everything, but I could see her colors. I didn’t know what to do.