Critical Condition (27 page)

There was a small flaw in their plan, she realized as a muffled knocking returned. They’d need to cut through two layers of drywall up here, not just the single layer that was probably below the stage. It would take too long unless they worked at it from both sides.

Nora went back out onto the stage where she’d be visible. The one guard looked asleep; the other was still standing, but his hands had dropped to his sides, away from his gun, and his head had rolled to one side. She wheeled one of the IV stands to just beside the drapes, pretended to be adjusting it, then pushed it behind the drapes, pulling Mark’s IV over to take its place.

Melissa watched her with wide eyes, performing the longest mock dressing change in the history of nursing.

Nora put a finger to her lips before quickly dissembling the IV pole, reversing the top of it so that the two-foot steel pole jutted forward like a pike. That ought to go through drywall without too much noise.

She hoped. She stole one last glance at the others. Everyone except the guards was alert, watching her—they’d give it away if the guards noticed.

“Melissa, tell everyone to start singing a song or something,” she whispered. “Anything to create a little noise and keep them occupied.”

Melissa nodded and left Mark to pass the message to Emma Grey, who sat on the edge of the stage, tirelessly entertaining the children who refused to sleep. A few moments later “The Twelve Days of Christmas” rang through the auditorium.

Nora moved back behind the curtain to the wall. She listened and could hear drywall being torn apart. Hoping that she wouldn’t hit Lucas or Jerry, she plunged the sharp end of the IV stand into the drywall and began jerking it back and forth, making a nice-sized hole.

She pulled the pole free and put her eye to the hole.

Jerry grinned at her from a few inches away. “Hey beautiful, where’ve ya been?”

 

 

EVEN IN THE DARK, GINA KNEW IT WAS BAD. THE way Ken’s breathing sounded louder than the gunshots that had come before, the coppery smell of blood filling the air. Ken somehow stayed on his feet, periodically nudging her penlight to direct their route. He steered them around a corner and down a side tunnel she didn’t recognize. They came to an imposing solid metal door, one she’d never noticed before. Ken slumped against it.

“Take LaRose someplace safe and meet me back here.”

“No. Come on, Ken. You can do it.” She wanted to pretend that there was nothing wrong, that she hadn’t just gotten him shot, that she wasn’t responsible for yet another death. “We just need to make it to the tower and everything will be all right.”

His face was ghastly white in the glow of her light. “Final stop.”

He slid to one side, and the light splashed red with the blood he’d left behind.

“We’ll take you upstairs. To the ER. I can help you.” He shook his head, his expression a half-smile but his eyes sad. “Open the door.”

No sounds from their pursuers. She handed him the penlight and pulled the door open. It was heavy, as thick as her fist, but once she got it started, it swung silently on well-balanced hinges. The room beyond stank of burned matches, reminding her of her college chem lab. “What is this place?”

“Chemical storage room. It’s built to withstand an explosion.” He lurched into the room, the penlight swinging madly as he held both hands against his right side. “Hurry back. I can’t do this alone.”

“Ken—”

“Hurry.” His voice snapped at her like a mad dog, pain and fury adding claws and teeth.

For once she didn’t argue. Instead she hustled LaRose down the hall and around the corner to the laundry. LaRose had woken from her stupor sometime during their headlong flight through the tunnels, and now she raised a quavery hand, pointing to some sorting baskets that stood at least four feet high. “There.”

Gina pushed her behind the baskets and camouflaged her with a sheet. Resisting the urge to huddle with LaRose and wait out whatever terrible thing was coming next, she kissed LaRose on the forehead. “I’ll be right back. Promise.”

“Go.”

She ran back to Ken. He was sitting on the floor, his back to one of the room’s many storage cabinets. “I need you to find me a container of sodium metal. It will be a plastic tub, probably filed under
N
for natrium.”

Sodium? She scurried around the room, shining her light into the many glass-fronted cabinets. She found the sodium, but the cabinet was locked.

“Hurry,” Ken said, his voice tight and sounding miles away even though the room was only ten feet across. “I heard them talking,” he continued in that awful beyond-the-grave voice that made her shiver. “They’ve rigged the generator. Harris controls it—I think through his radio.”

She reversed the Maglite and used it butt first to smash the glass, then grabbed the tub of sodium.

“Water.” Ken nodded to the sink in the corner. “Get me a glass of water—a paper cup would be best.”

“There are plastic specimen jars.”

“That will do. Bring everything here.”

She gathered the water and the sodium and returned to kneel by his side. “When I was a kid, I remember a high school science teacher who tried to impress us by throwing a tiny piece of sodium into water—made for a nice bang and a splash.”

“I’m going to do the opposite. Add the water to the sodium.”

“And what’s that gonna do?”

He leaned his head back against the cabinet, his eyes vacant. “Room this size? This much sodium? About four seconds after I drop the water in there’s going to be one helluva explosion and a huge ball of fire.”

“Thought we were trying to stop a fire, keep them from burning down the hospital.”

“This room is blastproof. But the door needs to be secured.”

“You lost me.”

Ken’s hands were trembling. His entire body lurched with each inhalation as he raised the cup of water and braced it against his thigh. “Find something to barricade the door with. It won’t lock with the power out.” He heaved in a gasp after every word. “Then bring them here. I’ll be ready.”

She gagged in horror as she faced the truth behind his words. He was going to kill himself and take out Harris’s men with him. “Ken, no. There has to be another way.”

“There’s no time.” Gina knelt beside him, reached for his wrist. His pulse was fast—too fast. His skin was cold and clammy. “I can feel the pressure building,” he said as calmly as if he were giving an anatomy lesson. “Retro-peritoneal bleed. Probably nicked my kidney.”

An injury that had a high mortality rate even if she could get him to an OR and trauma surgeon right away. Which she couldn’t. “Maybe you’re wrong.”

He finally met her eyes. “I’m not.”

“Ken, you don’t have to do this.” Gina heard the tears in her voice even though her eyes were still dry.

He squeezed her arm to quiet her. “You need to listen. Everything happens for a reason. Everything. Remember that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know why my family had to die the way they did, but if they hadn’t I wouldn’t have been out on that street last summer to save those kids and you wouldn’t have been there to save me and I wouldn’t be able to save—” The words emerged in a breathless rush. He grimaced in pain as sweat beaded across his lips. “I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to save everyone.” She kissed him on the forehead.

“You need to go. Now.” She stood. He looked so much smaller than before, huddled on the floor. And yet . . . He raised his face to meet her gaze. “Promise me. You’ll remember.”

“I’ll remember.”

Tears choked her vision and strangled her words. All she could do was nod and blindly rush out the door.

LYDIA MOVED IN FRONT OF TREY, PUTTING HERSELF between him and the gun.

“Shut up and do as you’re told,” Black snapped at his partner. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to start shooting people.”

Smith grinned, then aimed his glare at Lydia again as more blood dripped from his nose.

“You really don’t know who I am, do you?” Black asked Lydia.

She didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she let Trey hold her against him on the couch, trying to block out the pain in her arm. She hadn’t broken her cast, but the bones inside had been rattled enough that pain twanged through her entire body.

Black wandered around her living room, examining the artifacts of their daily lives with an interest that surprised her. Then he ended up at the mantel, fingering Lydia’s two most precious possessions: the only surviving photos of Maria.

“Leave those alone.” She couldn’t help herself. She’d fought for eighteen years, particularly all those years in foster care, to hang on to those two photos and the only other legacy she had left from Maria: a charm bracelet that circled her wrist, hidden from sight by her sleeve.

Black arched an eyebrow at her outburst. “She never told you, did she? Did she tell you anything?”

Trey pulled Lydia closer, trying to restrain her temper, one arm around her back, one across her lap, holding her free hand and squeezing it tight. As he moved, the afghan that his mother had knitted them slid from the back of the couch, bunching between their bodies.

“Do you even know your own name?” Black continued, relentless.

Anger straightened her posture and she slid to the edge of the couch, glaring at him. “I know enough.”

He chuckled. “I don’t think you know anything.”

Lydia leaned forward, hiking her parka up over her hips. She hoped Trey would get the message. She squirmed closer to him as if seeking comfort, pressing her back—and Sandy’s gun—against his arm that encircled her waist. He stiffened, and she knew he understood.

“Tell me,” she said, breaking the staring match with the stranger. “Tell me who my mother was.”

“First you tell me,” he commanded. “Who am I?”

He stood in the full light of the fire, the yellow glow flickering over his features. High cheekbones, dark almond-shaped eyes, hair blacker than midnight.

Beside her, Trey started, a small noise escaping him as he hugged her tighter.

“Who am I?” the stranger repeated, the firelight making his eyes spark.

“You’re my father,” Lydia said.

She’d intended to speak the words in a clear, unrepentant tone, the tone of someone not frightened, a tone of calm confidence. But nearly thirty years of imagining her father as the most dangerous monster any nightmare could conjure betrayed her. Instead her voice emerged as a hushed whisper, a child trying hard not to attract the bogeyman’s wrath.

His laughter filled the room to bursting.

“That’s right, little girl.” Mr. Black’s voice was booming. “That’s exactly right.”

 

 

BY THE TIME AMANDA REACHED THE KITCHEN again, she had so much dust trapped in her eyelashes that every blink brought with it a light show of rainbows along with a cascade of itching. Her eyes felt gritty, her skin grimy, and she didn’t even want to try to imagine an adjective for how bad she smelled.

The flicker of the Sterno flame illuminating Jerry’s and Lucas’s legs warmed her, drawing her close as if she were coming home. She’d reached for the final stud, hauling herself through to the pantry, when Lucas’s hands clasped hers and she flew out of the dark, through the broken wall, and landed with her feet back on solid ground.

“You’re okay,” Lucas said, pulling her against his body, ignoring the dirt and cobwebs and sweat-caked grime.

Once Amanda caught her breath and pushed his arms away enough so that she could breathe, she shook her hair and invisible bits of construction fodder rained down against the floor in a sprinkle of sound.

“I’m fine.” She looked past Lucas to where Jerry stood on a step stool, wobbling as he kept his balance with one hand against a shelf while he tore drywall with the other. Nora waved at Amanda through the hole she and Jerry had created. It was already more than twice the size of the hole below, large enough for most of the adults to be able to slide through sideways, if they ducked below the horizontal two-by-four.

A few feet on the other side of the hole sat a chair where another hole was begun—Lucas’s contribution to the rescue efforts. He still wore his dishwashing gloves, now covered in dust and threads of gray wallboard.

“Two holes, twice the people,” he said, waving a hand at his work like a proud father.

“I’m going to get the children,” Nora whispered through her side of the wall.

“What about the guards?” Amanda asked.

“One’s asleep. I think the other one’s having a reaction to the ketamine—he’s awake but pretty out of it, talking and gesturing to people not there.”

“Sounds like a dissociative episode,” Lucas said as he climbed back onto his chair. “Be careful. Some people get violent during those.”

“I’ve told everyone to stay away from them. I don’t want to risk taking their guns and having something happen.”

“Can you lock yourselves in? In case the other guards come back?”

Nora shook her head. “No, not from this side of the doors. That’s why we need to hurry.”

She disappeared from sight. Lucas and Jerry kept working on expanding the escape passages. The light from the Sterno can began to flicker out, so Amanda went back out into the kitchen to get a new can. By the time she returned, Jerry had gotten down off the ladder and had formed a bucket brigade of sorts, catching the children Lucas helped to squirm through the hole from the stage.

“That’s right,” Lucas told them. “Get down on your bellies, feet first, and just come on through; we won’t let anyone fall.”

Deon was already safe in the pantry, and his great-grandmother was trying her best to keep her skirt from flying up as she climbed through the hole on the opposite side.

“Don’t worry about it, Emma,” Amanda told her as she helped guide her through it. “Look at how bad I look—can’t get worse than that.”