Page 33 of Saint of the Shadows

“How many bullets do you have left, boss?” John-Boy asked; his spittle hit her cheek.

The rat didn’t stay in bits for long. The bits collected like goo poured into a mold, forming back into the white rat. Fully repaired, it shrieked. Marisol hiked up her shoulders as her eardrums stung from the unholy screech.

“What the fuck?” The Bloodsucker adjusted his mask.

They stood dumbstruck at the living dead rat. She pried herself away from John-Boy’s grasp. The elevator door dinged open. She ran to it, finding it an empty shaft. The Bloodsucker fired the gun.Click.He was out of bullets.

She bolted to the fire exit but felt hands pull at her hood and hair. They dragged her back to the open elevator doors. The Bloodsucker motioned for the other two to let her go. She trembled, watching his blood stream out of the hole in his face like a forked tongue. The Bloodsucker clicked his tongue as he moved his head near her face. With each click, his teeth pulsed toward her. A patch of bloody skin poked through the empty maw. Only a mask. Just cloth and plastic. How could cloth and plastic encapsulate terror?

He gave her a sharp shove.

She fell into the elevator shaft, flailing. She grabbed at the steel cables. Her hands ripped open as the cables burned into her grip. She crashed into the stuck elevator car and rolled off, falling againuntil crunch—the sound of her body hitting the ground.

The darkness swallowed her. Her ears rang, and her neck muscles strained. Was she screaming? She couldn’t hear through the ringing. Pain surged from the right side of her body, which choked the breath from her.

She was as good as dead.

12

Not Good At These Things

Marisol gasped as if she forgot how to breathe. After blinking away the dots in her vision, her gaze followed bars of light drawing a grid up the elevator shaft. The grid shrunk into a halo at the top floor. It must’ve been morning.

The icy chill of the concrete floor dug into her back. Could she move? She wiggled her fingers and her toes. Ow! Breathe. Each sip of air she took begged for respite from the pain. Moving would not be easy.

Would someone hear her if she cried for help? Her dry and sticky tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She managed to whisper, ripping her lips apart.

“Help.”

The empty hiss of white noise mocked her. She swallowed, but the parched gulp stuck in her throat.

She had to save herself.

The dots in her vision formed into an aura, clouding her search for escape. From under a desperate blink, she spotted a ladder out of the pit. She propped on her elbows and dragged herself an inch. More pain racked her body but not the throb of her broken leg. It was the sharp peel of her skin when she crawled out of the puddle of her own blood. She collapsed.

He found her earlier. Could he find her again? She grazed her hand against her chest—a feeble touch of her abuelita’s necklace. “Help me.”

The cables in the shaft groaned, pulling the weight of the elevator car. Someone was there. If she yelled, they’d find her, but she couldn’t. She reached into the pocket of her coat and grabbed her keys. Shallow, desperate breaths chased the pain away. She inched closer to a vertical metal beam and struck her keys against it. It rang.

The elevator stopped. The bars of light danced above her. She dropped to her back. With every blink, her eyes grew heavier. Dying felt like resisting a nap on a bed of dry ice.

The doors thundered, wrenching open. Tobias emerged from the parted doors. “Somebody’s here!” He jumped to the ground and dropped a crowbar at his feet. “Marisol!”

Tobias kneeled beside her and pressed against her carotid artery, checking for her pulse. “Get me a stretcher. She’s alive!” He whipped his tie off and tied it around her thigh. “Stay with me, Marisol. Stay with me.”

She moved her lips, but they made no sound. With a final push from her lungs, she whispered, “Where were you?”

She awoke in a hospital room. From the angle of a patient, it felt unfamiliar. A sling elevated her leg. A fiberglass cast wrapped from her knee to her foot. She reached to touch her encased leg, but the dull jerk from the tubes in her hand stopped her. An IV of blood and saline solution leashed her to the spot. Boop. Along with an EKG monitor. She was stuck but not in pain. Thanks, morphine.

To her other side sat a bouquet of white and pink lilies. Marisol untucked the card from the plastic prong. “Godspeed. Tobias.” It hurt to be charmed. It meant she was worthy; a worthiness she couldn’t feel with her body and mind devastated by trauma. A gentle rapping sounded from the doorway.

“Some people are real cheese balls.” Tobias leaned against the doorframe, draining a small Styrofoam cup of coffee.

“Thanks.” She nodded toward the bouquet.

A weak smile flickered across Tobias’s face before he crushed his cup and tossed it in a small waste bin near the door. “We could’ve set you up in a better place. Nothing but weak coffee here.”

Here, abscess-yellow paint decked the walls unlike the institutional blue walls of the Varian Family Hospital. “Where am I?”

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