Page 118 of Second Chance

They don’t talk much on the way. Tony gives directions, and Daniel follows them.

In the parking lot, Daniel asks, “Are you sure you’re okay to do this?”

“Me?” Tony wants to ask Daniel the same thing. “I’m fine.”

“Tony. You can wait in the car. I know you’re still angry.”

He is, of course he is. But sitting alone in the car in the dark, waiting for Daniel to finish up inside—letting Daniel out of his sightagain—

“No, I want to come in.”

“Okay.”

The fluorescent lighting in the hospital is jarring, too bright and somehow loud in Tony’s skull. It’s loud the normal way, too, even at night on a… Christ, he doesn’t know what day it is. People in scrubs keep pushing past them, a phone rings,everyone’s talking. There are too many things to process all at once.

“Right, so, Lily’s in the psych ward?” Daniel doesn’t know, how would he? But he walks toward the elevator with confidence, and Tony and Detective Taylor follow.

The nurse at the reception desk tells them it’s past visiting hours six times before Detective Taylor gets impatient and flashes her badge. Then, the nurse insists on calling the attending doctor before letting them through, and there’s some talk of informing Lily’s next of kin. The whole thing takes so long, and Tony is so useless during it he starts to feel like he’s floating somewhere over his own body, barely a part of this experience.

When they finally get there, accompanied by a doctor who seems to be running on the same level of exhaustion as the rest of them, Lily is asleep.

It isn’t restful.

Against the white hospital sheets her skin appears pale, the dye in her hair washed-out and bland. She must be dreaming because she twitches, making soft little sounds.

The doctor wakes Lily gently. It doesn’t help. She still shakes under the thin sheets, pulse speeding on the monitor.

When she sees Daniel, standing awkwardly behind the doctor, all the blood drains from her already pallid face, leaving her ashen and gray and seeming younger than she is.

“Oh no.” She looks away, swallowing convulsively. Tony wonders abstractly if she’s going to throw up. “Professor Rosenbaum, I—I’m so sorry. I—”

“It’s okay, Lily.”

Abruptly, Tony wants to scream. It’s not okay. She kidnapped Daniel. She kept him in a freezing abandoned building, she threatened him with a gun, and then her terrible boyfriend nearly shot Tony.

Nothing about that is okay.

He curls his hands into fists, nails biting tight into his palms. He clenches his jaw tight as the doctor calms her down and helps her get settled.

“Miss Peterson,” Detective Taylor says firmly but quietly when Lily is as ready as she’s going to be. “I’m very sorry to come here so late, but this may be your last chance to revise your previous statement.”

Lily looks out the window. Her lower lip juts out. “I don’t… Why would I change anything?”

Daniel pulls the chair by her bedside up and sits directly next to her. His keeps his voice soft. “Lily, your boyfriend came to find us tonight. He was…uh…”

Trust Daniel to try finding the sensitive way to put it, even now.

“He had his rifle,” Tony says, and on the bed, Lily stiffens. Tony keeps going anyway. “He wanted to know what you had told us, and he nearly—he tried to—”

“Is there anything, anything at all, you want to tell us about him?” Detective Taylor has her notebook out as she says it, eyes sharp and unwavering on Lily.

“Uh.” Lily looks between them. She can’t focus on any one of them, eyes skittering like the deer she never hit the day she lost control of the car. “He. I. Um.”

Daniel leans forward. “Lily, why don’t you tell us what happened that day when you found Professor Lawrence?”

She looks down at the sheets, picking at a fold. Her fingernails are bitten bloody. “I was having a bad day. Sean was mad at me ’cause I didn’t want to get high and fool around, and he kept telling me I was a head case. I made an appointment with Professor Lawrence to talk about a makeup exam or something, and Sean helped me practice what to say. But he didn’t think I’d actually do it, so he said he’d come with me.”

“And did he?” Detective Taylor pauses in her notetaking, looking at Lily expectantly.

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