I heard her voice in there when those thugs threatened her. She’d sounded terrified and alone, and I could only guess at what she was going through. Her mother was in a coma and as far as I could tell based on her records, she had no other living family in the world—only a father that had passed a week earlier. One dead parent and another clinging to life, on top of a difficult accident. I had to marvel at the fact she was still going at all.
There was a fire in her eyes when I pressed her on it though, and I knew getting through to her wouldn’t be easy. I got up off the couch and stood in front of my bookshelf where a picture of my sister, Jamie, smiled back at me. We had the same eyes, same hair, same nose—but she resembled our father and I looked more like our mother. We were ten years apart, but we were still close. She’d always been the wild one, and when we saw each other, I felt like I had to play catch-up trying to keep up with her breakneck speed. When our parents died, I had to grow up fast, but she seemed to double down on her recklessness.
I was twenty-five when it happened and she was fifteen. I moved back home and commuted while she finished high school. We fought a lot, struggled with each other, but we made it work. She graduated and I finished med school, and things looked up until she met Silvo.
I closed my eyes and put the picture back down. I hated that memory, the first night I met her scumbag boyfriend, and I hated even more what happened afterward. I finished my whiskey then drifted to bed, thinking about the similarities between Jamie and Erica, and wondered if only I’d been a little bit older, a little bit more jaded, maybe I could have saved my sister.
But that was the past, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it now.* * *I had an early shift the next morning. I arrived as the sun rose, slightly hungover, still exhausted from not getting enough sleep. Fiona sat behind the nurses’ station like she’d never left and nodded at me. I yawned and took a long sip of coffee.
“Busy?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Quiet.”
“How’s the woman in the coma?”
“Still asleep.” She glanced at me. “That’s the girl’s mom, right?”
I nodded and tapped the desktop. “Keep an eye on her for me, okay?”
“Something’s up with you,” she said as I headed down to the doctors’ lounge. I waved and ignored her. Maybe I’d tell her one of these days, but for now it was better if she didn’t know what was going on.
I reached the lounge, put my stuff away, got changed into scrubs, and started my rounds. It was a quiet Mercy morning, which meant everything was a nightmare and a scramble, and I found myself distracted for the first few hours of my shift. As soon as I got a free moment, I made my way back toward Erica’s wing, and started climbing up the stairs toward her.
I heard someone heading down in the opposite direction. I didn’t think much of it—the elevators were notoriously slow so a lot of staff took the stairs. But my pace slowed as the girl came toward me.
It was Erica. I almost burst out laughing. She wore a pair of tight, dark jeans and a baggy gray sweater. Her hair was up in a bun and she wore dark sunglasses, likes she was trying to hide her appearance. I leaned against the railing and crossed my arms as she stood still and stared at me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, and I realized she thought I’d been waiting for her.
“You’re trying to sneak away,” I said.
“I’m not— no, that’s not it.” She stared at me. “Why are you standing alone in the stairwell?”
“I was coming up to check on your mom, actually. Why are you sneaking away?”
“I’m not sneaking.” Her tone was tight and annoyed.
“You know you can leave whenever you want. You’re not a prisoner.”
“I know that.”
“You have to do some paperwork, get checked out by a nurse— I assume you didn’t do any of that?”
She took off the sunglasses and gave me a look. “I’m leaving, okay? I have some things I need to do.”
“Huh, strange, because last night you told me you think you have a bad concussion and shouldn’t be discharged.”
Her jaw flexed. “I got better.”
“I see that.” I gave her a wry stare.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” She started down the stairs again. “I can go whenever I want, right? So back off.”
“I know you can, but you should get discharged first.”
“No, thanks.” She brushed past me, and I grabbed her wrist before she could slip away.