“Relax,” Harnek soothed the girl, patting her hand. “Count backward with me from twenty. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”
Her head swollen to an impossible size, the girl’s bloated lips moved, but the sound was more of a hiss than a word and with a final fearful thrash came a noise like fabric ripping. Pieces of her flew free in a bloody spatter.
Harnek and the EMTs were slick with gore and blood.
I covered my mouth and shook back the trembling terror that rattled through me.
Leaning away at a more comfortable distance, Jones flicked something unrecognizable off her shoulder and withdrew a handkerchief from her pocket to dab at the blood freckling her face.
Harnek wiped at her eyes as the EMTs cursed and slipped backward in gore.
“We need decontamination!” one exclaimed, panic edging into his voice.
“No,” Harnek insisted. “Breathe. The girl was clean—there’s no contagion.”
“Like the others—the symptoms don’t transmit?”
“Exactly. Everything’s self-contained.” Harnek sighed, a shudder shaking through her as she slid her hands across her dripping face to clear it. “God, poor girl … What am I going to tell her parents?” Her body shook with a sob before she straightened and noted the distance Jones and the nurse had managed to keep between themselves and the exploding girl. “You knew…”
Jones’s hands rose. “No. How could we possibly know?”
But Harnek’s eyes grew small. Although I was no longer sure I could trust Harnek, I knew she didn’t trust Jones, so I wouldn’t, either. “Point us toward the showers.” She dug keys out of her pocket and threw them at Jones. “Get my overnight bag out of my car. I was going to stay with her.…” she said, strangling on the sentence. “I guess I’ll need my clothes, anyhow.”
Jones flipped the keys to the nurse and pointed down the hall, away from me. Quietly I turned, heading back toward the common room. But not before I realized someone was watching me.
Looking up, I caught the eyes of a new addition to Pecan Place—a guy a few years older than me, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He smiled as I dodged past to reclaim my seat at the round white table. But there was no warmth in his smile, just a cool slide of lips and the mimicry of a friendly expression that got lost somewhere between his mouth and his eyes.
Silent and still except for the anxious drumming of my fingers on the tabletop, I sat with my back to the common room’s doors, waiting until I thought it was safe to head back to my room. A glance over my shoulder proved the hall was clean, the stretcher and EMTs gone, the dead girl just a grim memory.
“Back to my room,” I instructed the Things.
Nearly there I heard arguing as Jones and Harnek rounded the corner and stepped into view in the hall not far ahead of me. Hair still damp from her shower, Harnek startled when she spotted me.
“Jessie,” she breathed. “That’s right. You’re here now.” Her face fell.
“Not for long, I hope,” I replied.
She nodded and faced Jones. “You do know how special this girl is, don’t you?”
Jones’s expression stiffened, her eyes narrowing. “I’m aware there are unique things that caused Jessica to be under my care.”
Harnek nodded. “So you’ll take very good care of her. I won’t have to worry about her having trouble while she’s here.”
Jones licked her lips. “As long as she doesn’t create any trouble, she won’t get into any trouble.”
Nodding again, Harnek placed her hand on my shoulder. “You hear that, Jessie? Do the right thing and you won’t have any trouble.”
Watching the two leave before I slipped into my room, I got the sinking feeling I’d just been warned.
But really. What were the odds I’d stumble into some sort of trouble? An unexpected sob bubbled out of me, and I collapsed on my bed, trying to forget the exploding girl and the strange new guy who watched me with such open interest.
Jessie
Sleep was hard to come by, and I woke exhausted and began my day doing everything by habit. It was as I loitered by the nurses’ station, shadowed by the Things and waiting for the laundry checklist that the newspaper on the counter rustled. Goose bumps rose on my arms and I realized there was no draft to cause the movement. The smell of fresh hay washed over me and I shivered, thinking of Mom. I focused on the headlines:
VISITING WRESTLERS STILL MISSING
THANKSGIVING BREAK SIGNALS MORE TESTS FOR JUNCTION STUDENTS
But the one that made my heart jump was:
LOCAL FOOTBALL STAR DIES
My stomach did a little flop and for a moment both hope and fear fought in me, tightening my throat around my suddenly misplaced heart as I briefly hoped the headline was about Derek.
Guilt swamped me. To hope someone was dead … even after he’d done so much …
That wasn’t who I wanted to be.
I adjusted my position to get a better view as the nurse rearranged pages on the laundry clipboard.
Jack Jacobsen of Junction High School died tragically Saturday afternoon on the train tracks outside Farthington. Deemed another in the growing rash of Train Track Suicides, the local community is stunned.
“Jack had so many things going for him,” Mr. Richard Maloy, head guidance counselor for the high school, reported. “The football team has been really shaken up by these last two suicides,” Maloy admitted. “We’ve brought in additional counselors like Dr. Sarissa Jones to help handle any questions the students may have.”
Junction Jackrabbits quarterback and team captain, Derek Jamieson refused to comment, though friends have mentioned their concern over his recent absences.
“It’s obvious we’re all very shaken up,” Sarah Luxom, the recently returned captain of the cheerleading squad, said.
The clipboard slapped down on top of the newspaper. “Here,” the nurse said. “New day, same concept. Now made even simpler for your safety.”
“You make it sound like I was to blame. I was attacked.”
She wheeled the cart over to me. “You shouldn’t waste your time reading that stuff. The news can be disturbing.”
“Ignorance may be bliss, but I’d rather be aware than blindly blissful.”
“Whatever. Go on, the laundry doesn’t do itself.”
Pushing the cart along, I let its wheels chatter, fighting me a few minutes. Things One and Two paid no attention. I finally relented, turned the cart correctly, and headed down the hall.