A pretty blonde nurse is telling him his burns need to be treated, but he shakes his head. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.”
“You’re his…cousin?” the nurse asks me.
I nod, and Marchant arches a skeptical eyebrow.
The nurse shifts her weight, now facing me. “Your cousin has burns on his back and his hands, and he’s refusing treatment.”
I step closer, tentatively taking one of his wrists. His hands are red and blistered. I wince. “That’s got to hurt.”
“I can’t feel it,” he says simply.
“Well it needs treatment anyway.” I look from his petulant face to the nurse’s concerned one. “Why don’t you bandage it or do whatever you would do.”
She blows her breath out. “To do that, we’ll need to give him an injection of numbing medicine.”
“Can you do it without that?”
She frowns. “It would be unethical. Excruciating.”
“And there’s no other option? Nothing you could, say, paint onto his skin or spray on?”
“Not really.”
I look at Marchant’s face. It’s burned deep pink on the forehead and cheeks. His lips are cracked. His eyes are wild. “Are you sure you can’t do needles?”
He nods once, looking as desperate as he did on Hunter’s plane.
I turn back to the nurse. “There’s got to be something else. Some kind of spray.”
“Nothing that would be effective.”
I’m shocked when he climbs out of the bed. He’s still wet, he’s pale as death, and he’s wearing only slacks. His hair drips as he turns to look at me.
“Thanks for your help,” he says. “But you shouldn’t have.”
And then he’s out the door.
*
MARCHANT
I hear Suri Dalton scrambling behind me as I stride through the hospital parking lot. She’s calling my name, I think. I can hardly hear her over the rush of blood inside my head.
I pick up the pace, hoping she’ll get the point and turn around. Instead, I hear the patter of her bare feet on the asphalt, and her tiny hand closes around my bicep. “Do you have your wallet?” she asks as I come to a halt. “Marchant, can you even call a cab?”
Careful not to look her in the eye, I point to a hotel across the street. “No cab needed.”
“Do you have any money for a room?”
I inhale deeply. I don’t, of course, but at the moment I don’t care. Maybe I’ll just sleep outside.
“Let me come with you. Let me at least get you a room, and then I’ll leave if you want.”
“Fine.”
I stride ahead of her, because I can’t stand to look her in the face. I’m so f**king embarrassed. That she’s here right now, seeing me like this.
There’s no telling what I might say or do right now. I think I’m nearing the end of this shit—I think I’ve begun to feel the icy fingers of depression work their way into my chest—but I can’t say for sure. I haven’t been this f**ked up since college.
I weave between rows of parked cars, and I hear her on my heels. I’m having trouble breathing—my lungs still feel wet, and they’re burned to boot—so I slow down, and I feel her hand on my back.
Humiliation and shame twist through me. “You don’t have to do this.” I turn around to scowl at her. “I don’t need your help.”
“Okay.” She says it slowly, like she’s speaking to a petulant child. “You can pay me back if you like.”
Payback reminds me of Hawkins, which sends a cold wash of guilt over me. Then I remember abruptly that Cientos started the fire—he came for Missy King—and I shot him. Didn’t I? I can hardly remember.
“Where’s Hunter?” I ask, rubbing my forehead. It’s just occurred to me that there were other people in the fire. Almost everyone I know and care about. I turn around to face Dalton. “Are he and Libby okay?”
She nods. “They’re at another hospital with Cross and Meredith.”
“Meredith?”
“She…used to go by Missy.”
I nod slowly. I remember that now. Cars whoosh past us on the road between the hospital and the hotel across the street. “What happened to them?”
“Missy’s really bad, they said. I mean, Meredith.”
“Do you know if anyone else was hurt?”
She shakes her head. “Everyone got out, though.”
I feel a swell of guilt about the whole thing, and especially for Missy. I told her she’d be safe with me. I didn’t keep my promise. I wonder if Cientos found her before Cross Carlson did.
“I remember…” I swallow hard, looking down at Suri Dalton’s beautiful bare feet. “I remember the window.”
Suri nods. “Cross and Merri jumped out the window, into the pool. Marchant…” she starts; her eyebrows pull together, all concerned, and I know where she’s going. I know what she’s asking. And I don’t intend to tell her one damn thing.
I turn around and start across the busy street. I don’t give a f**k that I’m not wearing shoes or a shirt. I don’t care that there’s no crosswalk either. As I dash through traffic, I feel confident I’ll be alone when I get to the hotel parking lot.
I clear the curb, and a patch of grass pokes my bare feet. I glance at Dalton, who is one step behind me. I fix her with a ‘fuck off’ look and try to set things right. “Could you go? I’d like to be alone.”
The breeze blows a strand of hair across her rosy cheeks, and I watch her mouth as she bites down on her lower lip. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you almost died tonight, for one.”
I sneer. “What’s two?”
She looks me over, head to toe. Her lips pinch. “Because you’re a raging mess. I think you need me.”
“You f**king wish.”
She’s shivering violently now, wrapping her arms over her chest, where I can see hard ni**les through her shirt. Her pretty face is hard; pissed off. Score one for me. “No I don’t, you arrogant ass. I wish I was at home, in my warm bed. But I’m here, with you, because I found you at the bottom of a f**king pool! What’s wrong with you?”
The wind carries her voice across the hotel parking lot, where it dies amidst a line of neatly parked cars and SUVs.
I take a step closer to her, hoping to evoke emotion in myself. But when I look into her hazel eyes, I feel nothing.