She turned and headed for the door. She never heard him coming, he was so silent and quick. Claiborne took hold of her elbow, crowded her into the door, his length pressed to her. He whispered into her ear. “You need to sleep.”
“I need to get off this floor, get them away from here. I’ll be fine. I’ll sleep in Q after they nab me.”
“You know what I mean.” His lips were touching her ear. She wanted to breathe in his scent, the clean cut of his shirt. “You need to let yourself go under.” He touched the side of her shoulder, indicating where Julia lay. “Like that. With us around. I brought plenty of IVs. I got the time.”
She lifted her eyes to his.
“You were struck with her,” he whispered. “But you were more down on sleep. Way down. You’re worse off than she is. You know this. Let yourself know this.”
“I know this.” She rested her forehead against his chest.
“You ER people are all the same. I hate you.”
“Left shoulder.” She spoke softly against his collar. “No lung, no vessel.” She ran her hand up his biceps, over his shoulder, pressed her thumb to the point of impact. She held it there, let him feel, think, imagine. She sighed against his neck.
“Listen. I’ll try.” She felt his arm across the small of her back.
Nothing could have held her better, contained her nerves. “I’ll try and set myself up.” She nodded toward Julia. “Like her. But Silva stays here, with Julia, because she stands the best chance for survival, and Silva is the best chance, anyone’s best chance. I got to Julia quickly. I was on it. You need to oversee. Covey needs to get back to her work.”
Claiborne jostled her. “That leaves—”
“Mullich.”
They laughed softly together. Together they whispered, “Hell.”
Then, for once, she overtook him, got the jump. She made a feint toward the bed, let Claiborne try for the lead, then went the other way, out the door.
Her eyes wouldn’t adjust to the light. The hall appeared different, as though she had gone through the wrong door. She didn’t anticipate the emptiness, the silence. She moved away from the door and farther up the hall, getting to the elevators. Something had changed. She stopped where she had injected the DC guards, where she believed that to be. The elevators remained quiet.
The blood spray was gone from the wall. She traced her fingers along the arc, where it had been. Was she imagining now, or had she hallucinated then? She tried to feel her own symptoms, the push and pull between sympathetic and parasympathetic, her limbic system haywire. There was definitely something off with her vision, but she couldn’t discern between constriction and dilation; the light was just wrong.
She faced the elevators, seeking some kind of answer in her warped reflection. When had she known? When Claiborne had said it, she had known, known as though reminded. Oh, yes, when I felt split, when I reached for two, one fallen, one still alive, what I often have to do, every day, several times. When I was ten. Or was it when I was on the roof with Mullich the first time? But no, Claiborne scanned me, found me pure and whole. So the one that pulsed through Julia pulsed through me. Or the one on the roof with Mullich just grazed my cheek, too shallow for any scan but just enough, enough. The one that killed the Mercy Six.
The elevator opened. She stood still, expecting one in DC garb and two security. The emptiness spread through her nerves. She felt herself opening with the silver doors, hollowing. The elevator remained open, waited.
She entered, stood in the center, faced the hall. She didn’t have her card. She had two syringes, one in each fist, caps off. With her knuckle she jabbed the button for Seven. As the doors began to close, Covey entered the hall and began running toward her.
Covey’s hair swung, her strides long and athletic. Mendenhall halted the doors with her foot. Someone running like that, let them in, let them join. Someone looking like that, just the possibility of her wanting to help, hold the door.
Covey drew up next to her, not even breathing hard.
“Who sent you?” Mendenhall let the doors close.
“The woman. She got a message.”
“What message?”
“Send Covey, too.”
“Mullich?”
“Yes. Who’s Mullich?”
“He’s a guy on the roof.”
Covey eyed the syringes in Mendenhall’s fists. “Are those the purple ones?”
“They’re what I have left.”
“Give me one.”
Mendenhall remained still, looked at Covey’s swimming reflection doubled on the metal doors.
“You need me. You need me when the doors open.” Covey pulled and flipped her hair into a soft knot. She applied lip gloss, looking at the smears of her reflection. “You need me for that guy on the roof. To help him with you.”
She gave Mendenhall the gloss, and Mendenhall gave her one purple syringe.
“Under the ribs is probably best. Otherwise the needle could snap. Press with your thumb. Then let them try whatever they want.
They’ll have less than a minute. Mine will go down right away.”
“Will they be all right? Afterward, I mean?”
“If found soon enough. And we leave the empties.”
“Did you call in the men Kae stuck?”
“He did.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s fifteen. He has a brother.” And then she knew she was right. “And he’s my patient.”
With the elevator’s lift her symptoms intensified. She tried to focus on her reflection, Covey’s, keep them distinguished. But Covey’s impression appeared to switch with Mendenhall’s. Her memory stopped, then jumped, lost temporal order but sharpened in other ways.
The door opened on an early floor. Someone came in. Or the elevator didn’t move at first. It was just she and Covey, needles ready. Or the door didn’t open. No one came in. Her mind went back down to Pathology, retraced the ascent: They stopped on Four; Ben-Curtis came in, and she knew what he was thinking. She heard what he was thinking. I’m going out. To watch.
She told him to go to a room in Pathology first. To see who was there. To talk to them, watch them for a little while. Then go out and find Thorpe.
The elevator didn’t move at first. She felt it begin to rise, focused on Covey’s reflection in the doors. Her own had folded into itself, vanished, appeared halfway, slunk again into invisibility. No one came in.
Then empty syringes were on the floor. Mendenhall and Covey were off the elevator and inside the entryway to the roof. The purple empties rolled, made hollow noises. Mendenhall’s right thumb was sore, sprained. Covey was trembling. Blood trickled down her forearm. Not her blood. She had no wound. She trembled and did not appear able to move.
Mendenhall’s left wrist was sore, also sprained.
“Follow me,” she told Covey. She used the hem of her t-shirt to wipe clean the blood. She offered her hand. “Take a deep breath and follow me.”
“I don’t care if no one finds them,” said Covey. She would not move. From the back Mendenhall wrapped her arms about Covey, gently cupping her elbows. They held still together, matched their breathing. Covey’s form relaxed against her. She lightened.
Mendenhall imagined her rising, slipping upward through her arms.
“Come.”
Mendenhall pushed open the roof door. She had forgotten it would be night. She was expecting day. Ashes fell from a black sky.
A red laser twirled in the whitefall. They could smell distant fire.
63.
Mullich stood beside the relic, his silhouette tall against the orange night sky. Smoke veiled the stars. He was slicing the laser over the backlit hills, the beam made solid by the fine ash filling the air. Mendenhall held her arm across Covey’s shoulders, let her lean into their shuffle across the roof.