Page 25 of Riot Act

“Damn it, dude. Okay. Fine. Have it your way. Just…don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She’s light as a feather when I scoop her into my arms. Limp as a ragdoll. The only part of her that bears the faintest scrap of life are her eyes, which stay doggedly locked onto my face. I hurry toward the emergency entrance of St. August’s, and her watchful gaze burns as I bolt for the door, holding her gingerly against my chest. The tang of copper coming off her is so overpowering that it’s all I can smell. The reek of it turns my stomach.

What do I find when I reach the door but Remy, leaning against the desk, staring at his phone, thumbs tapping quickfire against the screen.

I’m going to fuckingkillhim.

The automatic doors don’t slide open. He’s fuckinglockedthem.

“REMY!”I roar so loud that the guy jumps, dropping his phone. His expression is all annoyance, but it quickly turns to panic when he sees the girl in my arms, and the blood that’s coating literally everything.

“OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”

A flurry of activity explodes on the other side of the door. Remy hits an alarm. A loud alert sounds, blaring down the hallways. People come running. The doors slide open, letting me in at last, and a slew of doctors and nurses arrive, pawing at Pres. They take her from me, and then the questions begin.

What happened to her, son?

What did she take?

Were you there when this happened?

Didyoudo this to her?

Did she do it to herself?

Numb to my core, I observe the unfolding madness. A gurney appears and Presley’s placed onto it. A doctor with thick dreadlocks tied into a knot on the back of his head shines a light into her eyes. “Uh, she’s going. Yeahhh, she’s out. Someone call up to the blood bank. We’re gonna need everything they’ve got for this one.” He shouts over his shoulder at no one in particular. A female nurse rallies, though, taking off at a full run toward a row of elevators.

People rush around, grabbing things, shouting for other things—a babbling stream of information firing back and forth between them that makes my dizzy. Amidst the chaos, the doctor with the dreads leads a charge, captaining the helm of the gurney, carting Presley off toward the elevators, and then…

…then…

Suddenly, I’m alone.

Well.

I’malmostalone.

Pete’s still here.

He takes off his black ball cap and scratches his temple. “I tell ya. You never get used tothat,” he mutters.

I frown. Why can’t…I feel anything? Why can’t I feel…my hands?

“The blood?” I murmur.

Pete fixes his hat back onto his head. “No, kid. The hope. Every time those doors slide closed, it gets you right here.” He places a hand in the center of his chest. “Thehopethat they’re gonna make it. Even when they probably won’t.”

9

PAX

The average human body holds approximately ten pints of blood.

I know this because I look it up outside, staring down at the lake of vital fluids that leaked out of Presley Maria Witton Chase while I was performing CPR on her. Tough to say how much is on the concrete, but it’s a lot. Plenty on my shirt and my jeans, too. On my hands and my arms and splattered all over the tops of my white Stan Smiths. At dawn, a custodian comes and pours a bucket of steaming water onto the mess along with a quart of bleach and scrubs the sidewalk with a stiff brush until he’s wading in ankle-deep pink foam. It takes three more buckets of scalding hot water to wash away the evidence, and after that the sidewalk looks perfectly normal again. Except that it isn’t.Ican still see the blood. The outline of the macabre crimson pool is perfectly visible tome,no matter how many times I try to blink it away.

At seven, a familiar face exits St. August’s; Remy sees me standing by the ruin of the brick wall, broken pieces of brick scattered on the ground around my feet, and sighs, shaking his head as he comes over. He sips from a takeaway coffee cup. There’s a dark shadow developing on his jaw, courtesy of yours truly. “You’re still here,” he states.

“I am.”

“You’re covered in blood,” he points out.