Page 17

“No. ”

“Do you have the recorder?”

“Yes. Thanks for caring. ”

“I just meant—”

I left the sink running but walked over to the door and kicked it closed.

I went back to the sink and ran my hands under the faucet stream some more. What the hell had happened in there, anyway? The first thing I always tell people who are nervous about a haunting is, “There’s nothing they can do to hurt you. ” Truth was, I’d never heard of an ordinary ghost harming anyone, or even trying.

Poltergeists were something different, but no one knew what. And I was confident that Caroline was not one, though she certainly behaved as badly.

I pulled my sweater open and it stung. Drying blood wanted to hold everything closed. It wanted to keep me covered and sealed. But I lifted my long-sleeved black shirt and winced. The injury was writhing, the ends of the neatly-sliced puncture wound reaching out for one another. It almost made me ill to watch.

“What is wrong with me?” I asked no one in particular.

I took a handful of paper towels and ran them under the steaming water. The heat didn’t bother me; I liked the way it made my fingers tingle. It distracted me from the tickle at my belly.

I wrung them out and flipped them open to wipe, and wipe, and wipe. I threw them away. They sat at the top of the pile of trash in the aluminum bin, pink and red on brown paper. I took another few sheets and used them to cram the others down, out of sight and out of mind.

Under my shirt, the transformation was wrapping up. It still hurt like hell, but it wasn’t so open feeling and raw. When I flapped my shirt to breeze the damp skin, I didn’t feel the air whistling into the wound.

I did feel light-headed, though. No wonder, with all the blood. Other people’s doesn’t make me squeamish, but seeing so much of my own displaced fluid made me want to close my eyes, so I did.

Nick knocked the door open again, this time ignoring propriety and strolling inside the bathroom.

I dropped my shirt back down and turned to snarl at him. “Out. ”

“No. Not until—”

“This isn’t up for negotiation. Out. ”

“Let me see. ”

“Not on your life. ” I closed my arms around my chest, even though my sweater was sticky and wet. But I’d rinsed the worst of it out, and a sideways glance into the mirror told me that I looked all right, so far as all right went.

He held his ground and made a grab for my shoulders, but I stepped back out of his way. “Shit, woman. They opened the room back up a minute ago and it looks like the shower scene from Psycho in there. I know you’re hurt, just let me take a look. ”

“It’s not that bad, and some of it isn’t mine,” I lied. What did he know about paranormal phenomena, anyway?

“Bullshit. Let me see. ”

“Touch me, and lose an arm. ”

He threw his hands in the air and said, “

Fine. Have it your way then. But I’m only trying to help. ”

I heard another knocking on the door, from someone identifying himself as a manager.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Please go away. ”

“Now, that guy,” Nick pointed a thumb at the door. “He’s worried because he doesn’t want you to sue the hotel for getting hurt here. But me? My motives are pure. ”

“I have no doubt. But that doesn’t mean I want you in here while I clean up. ”

“I brought a first-aid kit. It’s got . . . stuff in it. Some, uh,” he opened the metal case and fiddled through it. “Some Band-Aids and gauze and stuff. Hey, look, antibacterial goop. Use some of this. And take some of these,” he handed me big patchy bandages that would have covered half my face.