Monster (Gone 7)

The enormity of it threatened to overwhelm her.

Cruz said, “Shade, I didn’t mean what I said about it being your fault . . .”

“Yes you did,” Shade snapped. “You meant it because it’s true. He’s here because of me! He’s burned because of me!” She slapped her chest with a clenched fist. “He’s dying because of me!”

She covered her face with her hands, wishing tears would come because that at least would be some kind of release. The doctor was still talking, explaining that they had given Malik painkillers, but that they were going to put him in a medically induced coma because not even the strongest fruits of the opium flower could hold this pain at bay.

“Can we see him?” Cruz asked.

The doctor, already heading away to his next emergency, waved a hand over his shoulder and said, “You won’t like what you see.”

“I can’t see him,” Shade said.

“You need to say good-bye to him,” Cruz said. It came out harder, more accusatory than she intended.

Shade shook her head. “I saw her, I saw my mom in the body bag, and every night before I fall asleep . . . I don’t want to be haunted by Malik, too.”

Cruz knelt before her and took her hands, prying them away from Shade’s face. “Honey, if you don’t you’ll be sorry later.”

“How the hell could I be more sorry than I already am?” Shade raged.

“Well, I’m going,” Cruz said. She stood, feeling the aftereffects of adrenaline wearying her muscles.

Malik was alone in a bed, his head slightly elevated. He was entwined in electronic leads and plastic tubes, one of which was down his throat. He was swathed like a mummy with only a strangely undamaged left hand free.

He trembled, every muscle in his body seeming to vibrate like a tuning fork. Pumped full of morphine, he was still conscious, with one eye open, staring through a gap in the white gauze. That eye looked at Cruz, stared at her from the bowels of hell.

“Hey, Malik,” Cruz said softly. And then, with nothing useful to say, she asked a stupid question. “How are you?”

Malik blinked. Stared with feverish intensity. And with his free hand he made the universal sign for writing.

“You want paper?”

Blink. And a choked moan that might be a yes.

The machine that breathed for him made a shushing sound. The digital readout over his head drew electric green lines, reducing his beating heart and his still-firing neurons to abstractions.

Cruz found a pad on the table and after a fruitless search ducked into the hallway to borrow a pen from a nurse. She placed the pen tenderly in Malik’s hand and held the pad as firmly as she could.

He was right-handed and writing with his left. The penmanship was never going to be good, and it was a barely legible scrawl.

Cruz frowned at the paper.

“It says ‘rock,’” Shade said. She had entered silently and now stood looking at Malik, her chest heaving. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“What?” Cruz asked, turning the pad to see more clearly. Then, with a slow realization, she saw that the single word was indeed . . . “rock.” It was as if Shade had read his mind.

“It’s the only way,” Shade said dully. “He figured it out, same time I did.” She managed a bleak smile. “Of course he figured it out. Of course.”

Shade moved closer to Malik. She laid her hand on the only exposed part of him and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Bunny. I’m so sorry.”

Cruz had never heard Shade use a term of endearment for Malik.

“Do you think you can swallow?” Shade asked him.

Blink.

A water bottle stood on the table, half drunk. Shade twisted the top off and pulled a baggie of gray powder from her pocket. She funneled the powder into the water and shook the bottle. The powder swirled.