Page 33 of Riot Act
My head is pounding. “I’m sorry, what the hell is happening? Why am I getting frostbite from a cup of yellow dogshit? Where thefuckare you taking me, old man?”
He frowns. “Language hasn’t improved, then. Shame. Still. I suppose it’s normal for kids your age to curse a lot. Here we go.” Pete twists me, hands still on my shoulders, and before I can pieceanyof this together, I’m walking through a door into room 3e, and low and behold…there’s Presley. The girl. The one with the auburn halo of hair, the burned caramel eyes, and the open wrists. Her wrists aren’t open anymore, though. Presumably, her wounds have been stitched back together beneath the thick bandages she’s wearing. Unlike the early hours of this morning, outside on the blacktop, she’s no longer covered in blood, either. And when she rolls her head across the mountain of huge pillows propped behind her head and looks at me, her eyes focus instead of rolling back into her skull.
She takes one look at me and her knees fly up underneath the blankets, like she wants to form a barrier between us. “Uhhhh…no. No, no, no.” She’s a deer in headlights.
I feel like I’ve been Parent Trapped. That reference probably doesn’t work here but fuck it. It’s how I feel. Pete’s sticking his nose in, and it doesn’t look like Presley appreciates his meddling.Idefinitely don’t fucking appreciate it. “I’m tired. I was just about to sleep,” she whimpers. “I can’t have any more visitors today.”
“One more won’t hurt,” Pete argues. “Your dad’s been gone two hours already. Stop being so rude and say hello to your guest. He’s brought you something.”
The gelato has melted, and a river of sticky, neon liquid is running down the back of my hand. Presley looks me over, quickly skipping over my face and torso, homing in on the desert; her expression doesn’t change. If anything, she looks even more distraught. “Is that…Lemon Sherbet?” she whispers.
“Ask the meddling security guard.” I throw a pissed scowl over my shoulder, but would you believe it—Pete has miraculously disappeared.
“I’ve only known him for six hours. He has a way of just…making himself comfortable,” Pres says. “He brought me a magazine. Then a DVD. I didn’t expect him to bring meyou.”
Kind of pissed, kind of horrified that I allowed myself to be coerced into this without realizing what was happening, I enter the room properly and place the sticky-ass gelato down on the bedside table next to her.
She blinks up at me, very alert and very curious. Also, very pale and very tired. Dark shadows bruise the skin beneath her eyes. She looks haunted. Irritated, I realize that she’s interesting to look at. She has the air of a Victorian consumption patient—fragile, the details of her fine and delicate as lace. In contrast to her deathly pale skin, her hair looks like it’s ablaze.
I crack a thumb knuckle, staring blankly at her. “How are the ribs?” I ask.
“Sore. It hurts to move.”
“I didn’t mean to break them.”
“You didn’t. They’re just bruised.”
Huh. No rib cage should bow the way hers did under my hands. I thought for sure that I’d broken them. Not that it matters. “Okay, well. Good luck with…everything. I gotta go. Bye.”
She catches me before I can make for the exit. “Wait.”
Oh lord. Here it comes. The explanation. Thewhybehind all of this mess. Tired to the bone, I stare at her with steely irritation.“What?”
Her eyes shine brightly. At first, those eyes seem unremarkable. Up close, they’re far from it—a deep and rich amber, like warm honey, mottled with flecks of brown that transitions to a starburst of pale gold around her pupil. They’re actually stunning. She blinks up at me, and I realize to my horror that I’ve been staring. “Don’t...please don’t say anything,” she whispers.
“To who? About what?”
She lets out a sputter of laughter. “To your friends. About this. About me being here. The way you found me. If you tell them, they’ll tell Elodie and Carina, and I don’t…I don’t want them to…”
That tracks. A normal person might not want their friends to find out that they acted so foolishly. I guess I can see that. And any other normal person, who’d experienced what I experienced last night, might feel the desire to tell their friends about the crazy night they had, literally saving one of their classmate’s lives. I’m not a chatty fucking Cathy, though. Gossip is the last thing I care about. “Don’t worry. I have better things to do with my time than recount this kinda shit.”
Her expression falters. She looks relieved, but also…torn? Christ. I don’t know how she looks, or what she’s thinking. I have no clue what goes on inside girls’ heads. She swallows, nodding slowly, though, and I can only assume that I’ve made her happy. “Thanks,” she whispers.
“Are we done here?”
She nods.
“Great. I’ll see you at school. I hope you get better soon, or…whatever.”
“Wait. Pax?”
Iwillmake it out of this hospital today. Even if it fucking kills me. “Yes, Presley?”
“I heard about your mom. She’s a patient here, right? The nurse said that was why you were outside. Because she needs a bone marrow transplant, and you’re probably a match? Are you going to save her, too?”
Oh, for pity’s sake. “Meredith doesn’t want me to save her,” I grind out. “If she did, she would have asked me to get tested months ago, when she started getting really sick. She hasn’t even asked me now. So, no. I’m not gonna fucking do it.”
Presley doesn’t say anything. She sags back against her pillows, looking down at her hands, and I can feel the censure rolling off her. Who cares what Presley Chase thinks, though. Fuck, I sure as hell don’t. So, why then, am I still standing here like a loser? I should just turn and walk out of this room right here and now. Only, for some reason…I can’t.
