Sing

CHAPTER 34.

MONICA

Any shadow of a feeling resembling doubt left my mind when those machines went crazy. I was in empty panic when they all rushed in, and when they put this paddles on this chest and he convulsed, well, the empty panic turned to something else. Something like, when you feel pressure in your bladder, you go to the bathroom. You may stop and do other things, but your ultimate goal, at some point is to release that pressure. Everything else is either a distraction, or a means to an end.

When I walked out of Jonathan’s room to get his father, I had absolutely nothing on my mind but making sure some motherfucker put a new heart in him. I did not ever want to see that again. I never, ever wanted to get used to it. If I went to jail for killing someone who was already pretty much dead, fuck it. I could be cool with that.

Declan paced the lobby, phone pressed to his ear. Even as exhausted as he must have been, he looked clean, energetic and calm. This must be a Drazen thing. Only Leanne in her general slovenliness and Sheila in her constant backbitten rage ever seemed a tick to the left of perfect. And Theresa, who looked buffed and polished when I’d met her before, had looked like she’d run a marathon in pumps when she came to the hospital. Maybe they were all human after all.

Except, Declan of course, who had been described as less than human, yet somehow had shown me only a vulnerable face. He saw me and held up a finger for me to wait. I didn’t have time for him. I scribbled —Room 7719 NOW— in one of the last blank pages in my notebook, tore it out, and slapped it in his hand. I walked away before he had a chance to answer. I had to assume he’d go up. I didn’t have time to baby him, and I certainly didn’t want a verbal cat and mouse.

I took the stairs to the fourth floor and strode to Dr. Thorensen’s office. He was going to assure me Jonathan was at the top of that list and I wanted an update on Paulie Patalano’s health. A cleaning cart stood outside the open door. He wasn’t there, but his screens were flashing and blazing with some twisted circle in the City of Dis, frozen in time, characters halted mid-action, a puzzle half-done. On the smallest screen, off to the right, a blinking text box with nothing in it, and above it, a list.

I couldn’t help myself. I looked. Each item on the list was the word PATIENT followed by a long string of letters and numbers. A location. A gender. A blood type. A colored box. Red. Orange. Yellow. It was all red at the top of the list, and the number two patient was in Los Angeles, California. He had AB negative blood. Jonathan. A fucking alphabet soup string with a red box at the end. My lover. My husband. Patient KJE873KP7988. M. LA, CA. AB-. Code red.

“Excuse me?”

A short lady in soft shoes and maintenance gear stood in the doorway. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her hands were covered in yellow plastic gloves.

I didn’t belong there.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just leaving.”

I walked past her before she could ask me what new horror I’d seen.