The Blonde

Zero a.m.

Pennsylvania Hospital

She was awake but not awake, In this world but not of it. She could feel the sensations of movement, of hands, of needle sticks. Shed been this way since collapsing onto the carpet of the hotel hallway, and since then she had not been alone. If she had, the Mary Kates would have finished their job. She would be dead.

I should have thought of this days ago, she thought, and imagined herself laughing. And that was all she could do, because she was still paralyzed.

Which was going to make it difficult to get out of this one.

Oh, she was cracking herself up here tonight. This morning, tonight. Whenever. Wherever.

She stared at the insides of her eyelids and saw fields of stars and pulsars rushing past her She wished she could open her eyes at least. See where she was. It was a hospital; she could tell that much. She could hear the beeping and gushing of oxygen tanks and faraway voices on an intercom. She could smell the harsh disinfectant. But it would have been nice to know which hospital.

She had been born on Holies Street, the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin. Was there any kind of symmetry with this hospital? Maybe this was Americas National Maternity Hospital. National to National. Dublin to Philadelphia. The last of the great emigrations.

Because soon enough, she would be left alone in a room in this hospital, and she would die.

What gave her comfort in these final minutes—and she was sure that it was just a matter of minutes—was how much she’d accomplished in these past two weeks.

How gravely she’d wounded the Operator.

He’d never be able to recover from this.

And she would never have to look at his face, that mask of balding banality, those piercing black eyes like a manhole cover on a sewer of insecurity and depravity.

She never wanted to see that face again.

She preferred the dark.