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Leslie Evelyn.
While waiting for her to pass, I scan the darkened room.
That’s when I see Greta.
She sits up in bed, startled, staring at me in fear.
Her mouth drops open, on the knife’s edge of a scream.
One sound from her could give me away, which is why I stare back, my eyes saucer-wide, silently begging her to stay quiet.
I mouth a single word.
Please.
Greta’s mouth stays open while Leslie hurries past the door. She waits a few more seconds before finally speaking.
“Go,” she says in a hoarse whisper.“Hurry.”
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I wait to move until Leslie pushes open the door two rooms down. Smoke pours from the room, gray and heavy, filling the nurses’ station. I use it as cover while heading down the corridor. With each passing step, the pain seems to calm. I don’t know if it’s actually going away or if I’m just getting used to it. It doesn’t matter. I just need to keep moving.
And I do.
To the corridor’s end.
Through the door left open by Leslie.
Into Nick’s apartment.
I close the door behind me, remembering how heavy it is, using a shoulder to nudge it back into place. When the door is finally closed, I spot the deadbolt in its center.
I slide it shut.
Satisfaction swells in my chest, although I harbor no illusions that Leslie and all the rest are now trapped. Surely there’s another way out of there. But it will certainly delay them, and I need all the time I can get.
I hobble onward, exhaustion, pain, and adrenaline dancing through me. It’s a heady mix that makes me dizzy.
When I reach Nick’s kitchen, the whole place seems to be spinning. The cabinets. The counter with its wooden knife block. The doorway to the dining room and the night-darkened park outside the windows.
The only thing not spinning is the painting of the ouroboros.
It undulates.
Like it’s about to slither right off the canvas.
The snake’s flickering-flame eye watches me as I shuffle to the knife block on the counter and grab the biggest one.
Having the knife in my hand chases away some of the disorientation. Like the pain, it lingers, but at a level low enough to push through. I need to escape this place. I owe it to my family.
I look at the photograph still clutched to my chest. When faced with the decision to take those pills, I saw their faces and knew what my choice had to be.
To fight.
To live.
To be the one member of my family who doesn’t vanish forever.