Queen of the Dead

14 Alona

The strange thing about a hospital is that you’d think it would run on routine, the same thing every day, every hour.

Instead, it was more like they set out to throw random elements in at odd intervals just to keep you off balance.

Mr. Turner had just left to take Tyler to the cafeteria when an orderly showed up in my room with a wheelchair. “Physical therapy,” he called out far too cheerfully as he pushed the chair up to my bed. His scrubs had dancing teddy bears on them. Blecch.

“Are you serious?” I asked. The last thing I wanted to do in this body was anything physical.

“Dr. Highland never said anything,” Mrs. Turner spoke up with a frown.

The orderly was undeterred. “The sooner we start, the faster she’ll be back on her feet.”

“Okay,” Mrs. Turner said, still uncertain. She set her book down, a tattered paperback that she carried with her everywhere without ever seeming to make progress in it, and stood up.

“It might be better for you to wait here. Therapy is hard on the patient, but sometimes it’s even harder to watch,” the orderly said.

Great. This sounded like more fun every minute.

“No, I think I should—” she began.

“I’ll be okay,” I said. Now that I could talk, I wasn’t completely helpless. And it would probably be a good idea to start putting some distance between us. If Will could figure a way out of this — and he seemed determined, if more for Lily’s sake than mine — then the less time we spent together now, the better. Not that it would help all that much after everything that had happened, but it wouldn’t make thingsworse as further bonding might.

“Are you sure, baby?” Mrs. Turner asked with a frown.

The weird thing was the prospect of leaving Mrs. Turner here and going to therapy alone didn’t exactly spawn the feelings of relief I’d expected. It was almost like I wanted her to go with me.

No, no, no. Not your body, not your life.

Not your family.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said firmly, trying to convince myself as much as her.

“Okay,” she said, beaming.

Oh. She saw it as a sign of improvement. Fabulous. Well, at least it made her happy.

After some very awkward maneuvering that revealed far more of this body than I would have wanted if it were mine, the orderly managed to get me into the wheelchair. That alone was enough to exhaust me, even though I’d done little more than just keep my balance during the transfer.

He spun the chair around expertly to face the door, and only then did I realize I’d left Lily’s cell phone on the bedside table. Crap. Well, how long could one physical therapy session last anyway? I’d probably be back before Will called.

If he called.

“Bye, Lilybean,” Mrs. Turner called after us.

This girl had more ridiculous nicknames than I had cute shoes. Or, used to have. Whatever. I wondered if my mom had finished cleaning out my room. Were all my clothes and shoes already on the shelves at the Salvation Army, next to ugly plaid sports jackets and sensible heels that nobody wanted to wear?

I shoved that thought away. I had enough to worry about right now.

The orderly moved us down the hall swiftly, like we were running late or something. The momentum, especially around corners, made staying upright a little tricky. More than once I thought I’d slide right out of the chair into a big hospital-gowned heap on the footrests.

But I didn’t ask him to slow down. Because every second we cut off this little adventure was one less in the hallway where everyone stared at me as we passed by. Some of them even followed me down the corridor, whispering to each other.

Look, I get it. It looks like a miracle, talks like a miracle, but…it’s not.

Reaching the service elevator — they never used the visitor elevators to move patients around, as I’d discovered during my bajillion tests earlier this morning — was, quite frankly, a relief.

Humming a tuneless collection of notes under his breath, the orderly wheeled me inside and pressed the button for the basement.

The basement? That seemed vaguely odd. Not that I had any clue where physical therapy took place, but I’d seen most of the basement at various times. After all, the morgue was down there, as was the MRI machine — another discovery from this morning.

Looking back on it, I should have asked. I should have spoken up and said something, anything. Maybe that would have been enough to push events back on course.

But I didn’t. I was tired from the effort of sitting up during the (relatively) wild wheelchair ride, and honestly, at the hospital, with so many people pushing and pulling at you, taking you one place, only to drag you somewhere else, you kind of just surrender your destiny to the powers that be with the idea that they know what’s best. I wasn’t proud of it, but that was just the way it worked.

The orderly wheeled me out of the elevator and down the main corridor before turning off into a small hall I’d never noticed before.

He stopped in front of an unmarked door and knocked.

The door opened, and the first thing I noticed was the smell: mildew and fake pine. The orderly pushed me inside, and then I saw the mops standing in the metal bucket, the rusting and tilted shelf that held crusty-looking bottles of industrial cleaners, and a huge washtub.

Father Hayes stood next to the industrial tub, his hands folded at his waist, as though he’d been praying while waiting for us.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, feeling the first spark of fear. Though somehow, in the back of my head, I was still thinking that this must be a mistake. A wrong turn.

“Raymond, thank you.” He stepped forward and extended his hand toward the orderly who shook it. “You are truly doing the work of the Lord.”

Oh, this was not good.

I craned my neck around to find Raymond or as much of him as I could see from that awkward angle. He released the priest’s hand and turned to leave. He was just going to abandon me down here in the janitor’s closet! “No, no, no. Come back, Raymond. Take me out of here. What about physical therapy?”

But he just kept going, at a speed much closer to normal rather than the rapid rate at which he’d moved before. And that’s when I realized he hadn’t been doing that to spare me embarrassment or discomfort. Nope, he’d been trying not to get caught. Bastard.

The door snapped shut behind Raymond, and I twisted around to face Father Hayes again, but he wasn’t looking at me. His attention was focused on something behind me.

“I assume this space will be adequate for your needs?” he asked.

I turned the other way, straining my neck to see who he was talking to, and as soon as I did, my breath caught in my throat and my heart exploded into a frantic beat. There, where the door would have hidden her from sight, stood Mina, scourge of the spirit world. She had her huge duffel bag strapped over her shoulder, and her curly hair stood out around her head in a frizzy halo. And, in her right hand, she held the shiny disruptor weapon that had taken down Mrs. Ruiz, aimed right at me.

Will. Had he called her down on me?

I wanted to throw up, not just from the fear but the betrayal. He’d threatened it, but I never actually thought he’d go through with it.

Mina moved to block the door. “This is fine,” she said to Father Hayes, her weapon hand steady and unwavering. She reached up and removed her duffel with her free hand, setting it down on the ground with a loud clanking sound.

But if Will was responsible, where was he? He might leave me to Mina, but he would never abandon Lily to chance. And what was the priest doing here? This made no sense.

“I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” I said, trying to sound level headed, the way a regular person would if she found herself in a janitor’s closet with seemingly crazy people instead of physical therapy.

“No. No mistake,” Mina said, circling me. “I can almost see you in there, flickering just under the surface.” She leaned over, bringing the disruptor closer to my face. I didn’t know if it would work on me in this form, but I was pretty sure it would, or else she wouldn’t be pointing it at me.

“Touch me with that, you freaky-haired bitch, and I will make you regret the day you decided to home perm,” I snapped.

Mina stopped, her mouth hanging open. Then she cocked her head to the side, an evaluating look on her face. “Highness? Is that you in there?”

Damn.

“You’re the red level.” She grinned. “This is going to be fun.” She backed up from me and knelt down by her duffel, careful to keep her attention on me. With her free hand, she started pulling out little metal boxes, ones I recognized as similar, if not identical, to the ones from the front room of the Gibley Mansion.

This was it. Mina was going to haul me out, box me up in little pieces, and stick me on a shelf somewhere.

Think, Alona, think! Talking her out of it was nevergoing to happen. I couldn’t run. Hiding was definitely out, duh. So, I did the only thing I could.

I screamed bloody murder…because I had a feeling that was exactly where this was headed.