“I’m finishing dinner. Lucas and I went out. What’s up?”
“It might be nothing, but I overheard my mom talking to my aunt, who’s a nurse at Thorne Hill General. Two girls were admitted this afternoon from supposed poisoning. They came in foaming at the mouth, and no one could figure out what was wrong, and nothing was working to reverse the poison. Sound familiar?”
“Yeah, it does.” It was the return-to-sender spell, I’m sure. “You said girls? Not an old haggy woman?”
“Two girls, in their early twenties.”
“Did they, uh, die?”
“No,” Betty tells me. “And that’s the weird thing, or at least what’s weird to the nurses and doctors taking care of them. Their symptoms suddenly went away. They’re weakened but should recover just fine.”
“Are they still at the hospital?”
“It sounded like they were at the end of my aunt’s shift. I know it could be nothing, but I wanted to tell you.”
“I’m glad you did. Thank you, Betty. Be careful, okay?”
“I will. You, too.”
“Thanks again, bye,” I say and hang up. “Well,” I start, meeting Lucas’s eyes. I’m sure he heard most, if not all, of that conversation. “I guess ice cream will have to wait.”Chapter 30“Callie.” Lucas’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Wake up, my love. We’re at the hospital.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” I mumble and straighten up.
“You’ve been asleep,” Lucas chuckles. “I can tell when you’re sleeping. Your heart rate lowers a little bit.”
I put my hand on the back of my neck and roll my head back and forth. I hate sleeping in cars. It’s not comfortable at all. Lucas shuts the engine off, and I blink a few more times, trying to shake the mental fog napping always puts me in.
And I’m still tired.
“Let’s do this.” I unbuckle and get out, feeling more alert once the cool night air blows against me. It’s getting windy, and clouds are starting to cover the night sky. Lucas takes my hand, and we walk into Thorne Hill General from the Emergency Room.
The ER isn’t too busy tonight, with only three people sitting and waiting. The attendant behind the desk looks at us, forced smile on her face. I’ve seen her before when Lucas and I came here to check on Betty after some asshole drugged her.
But the attendant has no memory of us, and she won’t after tonight, either.
“Hello,” Lucas says, giving her his trademark smile. The girl blushes, smiling back at him as she fumbles to pick up a clipboard from the counter. She’s held spellbound in only a second. “We are looking for two young women who were admitted yesterday afternoon due to unexplained poisoning.” He motions to the computer. “I need you to look up information about those patients.”
I look around the waiting room, making sure no one is watching us. A mother with a sick child is rightfully preoccupied holding a garbage bag open in front of the kid, and a guy holding a bloody rag to his hand is focused on an infomercial that’s playing on the TV.
The last person in here looks rather worn, too, as I’d assume you’d be to come to the ER, and looks around the room, eyes landing on me for a split second before looking away. Maybe I’m naive to assume the guy is too far away to hear anything, but when he leans back and closes his eyes, I take it as a sign he doesn’t care even if he did hear us.
“I…I think I found them,” the attendant says and points to her computer screen. She turns back to Lucas, eyes completely glossed over. “Room 307.”
“Thank you,” Lucas tells her, flashing another panty-melting smirk. “You did a very good job.”
The girl blushes even harder. “It was my pleasure.”
“You’re going to go back to work and forget we were ever here. You did not see us.”
“Right. I didn’t see you.”
“Now close your eyes and count to ten. When you open them, you’ll go back to work as normal.”
“Okay.” She closes her eyes and starts counting. “One, two, three…”
Lucas grabs my hand, and we hurry through the doors leading to the other part of the hospital. The lights are dimmed in the lobby, which is closed after nine p.m.
“Do you know where room 307 is?” Lucas asks.
“I do, actually. It’s on the third floor and is away from the nurses’ station. I’ve interviewed a few people post-demon attack,” I explain. “It’s way past visiting hours. Be ready to hold anyone spellbound.”
We briskly walk through the lobby and get into an elevator without seeing anyone. There are still people moving about the hospital, of course, and I think we could slip past undetected for the most part.
The elevator dings at the third floor, and we get out and step to the side, taking a few seconds to look around. A nurse’s aide comes out of a room, carrying an empty cup. She heads down the hall to the ice machine, and Lucas and I hurry past, going into room 307. The TV is on, and the curtain dividing the two beds is pulled back.