Page 228 of The Night Shift

“Start over.”

Raul nods fast. Starts over. The other two interns move a step forward too. They start working on other parts of the body. The girl with the braids angles herself near the shoulder. The third guy fumbles with his needle driver and positions himself near the lower sternum. He adjusts his lab coat from the back, a quick tug. The movement sends a soft swish and the sheet on the table next to him slips halfway down.

I move to fix it. Just because someone’s dead doesn’t mean we get to stop being decent. But then I see it.

A small butterfly. Inked in black. Right on the curve of the shoulder blade.

I stop.

Huh.

It’s not a special tattoo. It’s not even very pretty. It’s just…I’m not sure. It’s just staring up at me. Soft-edged wings on skin that isn’t breathing anymore.

Why do I feel like I’ve seen this tattoo before? Somehow, everything feels louder. The buzzing fluorescents. The sound of gloves stretching. The scratch of a shoe against linoleum.

It shouldn’t mean anything. But suddenly it does.

Suddenly it feels like something is unraveling. Like if I keep staring, it’ll pull the wrong thread and the whole world will come apart.

My phone rings.

I flinch. Visibly. Like a jump-scare in a morgue wasn’t already cliché enough. My heart knocks against my ribs. I clearmy throat. “Keep practicing, I’ll be right back,” I tell the interns before stepping out of the cold room. I pull my phone out. It’s Camille.

I swipe to answer. “Hey, Cami. What’s up?”

“Let’s have dinner tonight,” she says. No hello, no nothing, just point-blank.

“I can’t tonight.”

“Why not?” she asks. I hear the distinct clink of glass against glass in the background. Some laughter.

I can’t tell her I’m worried about Theo. She wouldn’t get it. Which, to be fair, is more about me than her. I’ve never given her a real chance to understand anything about him.

“My shift ends late,” I lie, feeling like shit.

“Please? I miss you and I feel like we haven’t seen each other in so long, Hol. Is something wrong? Have I pissed you off in any way?”

And now I’m the worst friend on the planet.

I flinch again. Not outwardly, but in that awful, stomach-twisting, chest-sinking way. “No. Of course not.” I press a hand to my forehead. “I’ve just been really busy. It’s been…a crazy week. I miss you too. You have no idea.”

“Dinner, then? Come over to my place. I’ll leave the bar early.”

I really can’t say no now. Not that I want to. Of course, I want to meet her. I do miss her. Ithasbeen too long.

I’ll check on Theo after. I will. I’m sure it’s nothing. Something with Emily, maybe. Or something else. He’s fine. He’s got to be fine. He’s not gonna be attacked twice in a week. Maybe it’s just getting to me now how much surveillance he has over my life, and I have none over his. Maybe that’s why I’m feeling like this. This…itch I can’t scratch. Like a thread caught in the hem of my brain, pulling tighter and tighter.

He's fine, I tell myself.He has to be. “I’ll see you there at nine?” I say.

Her voice perks up like I’ve just saved her whole day. “Perfect!”

The line clicks dead. I step back inside the morgue, where my interns are still trying (and failing) to suture the corpse like their lives depend on it and I’m still the kind of person who lies to her best friend while wondering if the boy she’s growing to tolerate is lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

I hope not.

* * *

I’ve only been to Cami’s apartment a handful of times. Once for her birthday earlier this year — it involved bad karaoke and a cake she insisted on baking herself even though it came out half-collapsed. Then once was when she got too drunk at the end of one of our nights out and I rode with her in the Uber to make sure she got home safe. And once when we first met. The night I killed a man for the first time.