Page 145

17

He went to the only place he felt safe.

He kept out of sight, taking the stairs rather than the elevator. He wasn’t supposed to be at the hospital, and if he got caught, he’d probably be in more trouble than he already was. He was still wearing all black (except, of course, for his purple Chucks—Gibby was useless), but that wouldn’t help him. Not here. It’d probably bring more attention to him than anything else.

He’d made it up three floors when he heard a door open somewhere above him. He panicked, looking for somewhere to hide in the stairwell. There was nowhere for him to go. He held his breath, the footsteps echoing on the stairs as whoever it was came down.

Another door opened, and the footsteps disappeared.

He sighed in relief.

The fifth floor was mostly silent. There was a man sitting at the nurse’s station, but he had his back to Nick. A woman moved down the hall, staring at a clipboard, but she turned and went in the opposite direction.

Nick crouched as low as he could as he passed by the nurse’s station. If someone saw him now, they’d probably call the police before anything else. He looked absurd, back pressed against the desk, inching forward as quietly as he could, hood pulled up over his head.

Somehow, by the grace of a god that smiled down at the idiocy of teenage boys, he made it past the nurse’s station undetected. He hurried down the hall toward—

“Nick?”

Crap. He’d been so close.

He turned around.

Becky stood behind him, head tilted to the side.

He waved. “Hey. How are you? You look… nice.”

The man from the nurse’s station stuck his head over the desk and looked at them. “Everything all right?”

Becky waved him away. “Yeah, this is Mr. Bell’s son, Nick. Apparently, he doesn’t understand the concept of visiting hours. It’s okay.”

“I understandvisiting hours,” Nick said, scowling. “I chose to ignore them. And what’re you doing here so late? I thought you worked during the day.”

“Working a double to cover for someone else. Nice shoes.”

“Oh. Thanks. The color’s called eggplant. They seemed like a good idea when I bought them, but now I’m not so sure.”

The nurse at the station sat back down in his chair.

Nick gave very serious consideration to whirling around and running as fast as he could when Becky approached, but it’d been a long night, and he was resigned to his fate. “Please don’t send me away. I just…” He couldn’t finish, the words drying on his tongue.

She reached up and pulled his hood back, letting it fall. She frowned. “You look exhausted.”

Understatement, that, if he looked anything like he felt. “It’s been a very weird night. I couldn’t sleep. And I needed to see him.” He tried not to be embarrassed as his voice wavered.

Becky sighed. “Tell you what. Why don’t you go on in. Make yourself feel better.”

Nick nodded, not trusting himself to speak. That sounded good.

She put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “Go. I was in there a few minutes ago. I need to make a phone call.”

His eyes snapped up to hers.

She smiled at him as she dropped her hand. “You know someone has to be missing you. Or they will be when they wake up and you’re not there. It’s only fair, Nick.”

Yeah. It was. Mary Caplan would probably panic in the morning. And then she’d call Cap, and it’d turn into this wholethingwhere Nick would probably be fitted with an ankle bracelet that would track him wherever he went. Cap wouldn’t be happy, especially since he was probably dealing with the fallout at Burke Tower right at that very moment.

“Okay,” he said. “Since I’m magnanimous, I will agree to this condition.”