Page 94 of The Devil She Knows
“You said she’s in a recovery room? Could you tell me where to go?”
Dr. Linz pointed her toward the elevator. “One floor up, make a left. She’s in room 201B.”
Sam hesitated. “Are there stairs I could take instead?”
Room 201B was the first one on the left, just past the nurses’ station. Sam slipped inside the room and drew up short inside the doorway, air leaving her lungs in a rush that left her dizzy.
Daphne looked so small in the hospital bed. So small and pale and—andhuman.
The nurses had cleaned her up, washing the blood and grime from her arms and face, and if it weren’t for the constant beeping of the monitors she was hooked up to, Sam could almost convince herself that Daphne was just sleeping and not still knocked out from the anesthesia.
Sam shut the door softly and took a seat beside the bed. Daphne’s hand, the one that didn’t have a needle catheter jammed in it, rested atop the pink hospital blanket. Careful not to disturb the pulse oximeter on her finger, Sam took Daphne’s hand in hers and swept her thumb across the back of Daphne’s knuckles.
“I don’t think you can hear me right now,” Sam whispered, “but you have no idea how happy I am that you’re okay. I was so,soscared that you—” Her voice broke and it felt like her chest cracked clean in half, everything she’d been bottling up since stepping foot inside the hospital pouring out of her in a deluge of ragged breaths and hot, salty tears that stung the corners of her chapped lips.
“’am?”
Sam jerked her head up and watched as Daphne’s lashes fluttered against her cheeks, eyes moving beneath her lids. Her eyes cracked open slowly, fuzzy but focused on Sam.
“Hey,” she whispered, squeezing Daphne’s fingers.
Daphne opened her mouth, but instead of words, a rasping cough came out.
Sam scrambled to grab the cup of water off the bedside table. She bent the straw and brought it to Daphne’s parched-looking lips. “Here. Small sips.”
She was pretty sure Daphne was allowed water; otherwise, the nurses wouldn’t have left it beside the bed.
Finished drinking, Daphne slumped back against her pillows and pinned Sam with a glare. “I hope you know I think you’re a reckless idiot for doing what you did.”
Sam laughed through the tears clouding her eyes. “Yeah, well—”
A soft knock sounded on the door and a nurse wearing dark blue scrubs poked her head into the room with a surprised smile. “You’re awake. That’s great.” She turned to Sam. “Do you mind stepping out for just a minute? I’ll call you back in a jiffy.”
Reluctantly, she let go of Daphne’s hand and slipped out into the hall. Two minutes passed and the nurse stepped out to tell Sam she could head back in.
Daphne smiled dopily at her. “I amsomad at you.”
She sounded drunk. She sounded— “Someone got the good drugs.”
“Mm-hmm.” Daphne giggled and sighed and wiggled herfingers until Sam got the memo and held her hand. “Still mad, though.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“Sam.”
“If you’re waiting for me to say that I’m sorry, I hate to break it to you, but you’re going to be waiting a long, long time because I’m not sorry and I’m not in the business of saying things I don’t mean.”
Daphne’s nose scrunched. “Sam.” She paused for a moment and from the furrow of her brow it looked like she was trying to swim out of a fog. “There is no way you could’ve known that would work.”
“No,” she admitted. “It wasn’t my plan, you know. I didn’t go the crossroads looking for a demon so I could make my wish. I just wanted to talk to you. You left me without talking through anything, and I—”
“I was trying to get out of it,” Daphne whispered. “That’s why I left. I knew it was a long shot, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up; I thought a clean break would be better if it didn’t work, but I thought if I could appeal to reason, maybe Lucifer”—her lips drew into a sneer as she said his name—“would have no choice but to let me go. Cosmic contracts, remember? If my contract was truly fulfilled, it should have worked, but I suppose because I sold my soul to him with my first deal, it didn’t count toward my second.”
“I guess we both decided to go for broke, huh?” Sam joked.
