felt stupid double-checking them with another nurse. I popped it out of the package and pulled its orange cap off with my teeth—and really quickly remembered to hit the cap of the bottle with an alcohol swab, as Lord only knew what needle Jake had shoved in there before me.
I pierced the cap, and slowly drew the pope water out. Three units worth—0.03 milliliters, written down. Barely anything. It was so clear it was hard to convince myself that there was anything in the syringe but air.
What to do with it now? I held the tiny syringe upright. I could drop it onto my tongue. Or—I could do what this syringe was designed to do. I tore open a new swab, lifted my shirt, made a circle on my stomach near my belly button, and then shoved the needle in before I could talk myself out of it. I’d given a hundred-million subcutaneous injections on other people before, but this was the first one I’d ever done on myself. I pushed down on the plunger, barely feeling it move, pulled the needle out, and waited for some response.
Pain? Heat? Bruising? Swelling? I watched the tiny pinprick, hoping for some reaction, and got nothing instead. I only knew where I’d been injected because I’d been the one to do it—I couldn’t have pointed out the spot to anyone else. What if to make pope water work, you had to believe in the pope? I laughed, and even to my own ears, it sounded a bit hysterical.
I pushed the syringe’s safety cap out to shield the needle, and tossed it into my trash. Littering biohazards was becoming a hobby of mine. I caught sight of myself in my bathroom mirror, across the hall.
Damn, did I need a shower. Of course what I really needed I wouldn’t get—a break.
Chapter Forty-Eight
I stripped, leaving everything on the floor where it landed, before getting into the shower with just my lanyard around my neck.
My water and its heating was the only utility bill I personally was not responsible for. The purpose of this shower would be to ensure that I got my last month rent of money’s worth. I scrubbed myself and my funky lanyard double-clean. Then I stood there, head bowed, and let the water rush over me. It beat against my face and torso, until I was numb to the sensation and inured to the heat. I opened my mouth to inhale and the sheet of water parted for me—and more water instead of air rushed in, bitter and vile. I gagged and opened my eyes and my shower walls were gone. My lungs spasmed, the water I’d inhaled making me want to cough, and if I coughed—I looked up and couldn’t see any light. Endless ocean all around. No boat, no shore, just salt water. The cold buffeted me, moving with the wake of something I knew I did not want to see. My eyes stung, my throat knotted, and I drifted, suspended in the viscous dark.
With no other choice, I took a breath. I could feel the cold grabbing at my cheeks, forcing its way inside me, crawling into my mouth and down my throat. It flowed in me and through me, against my struggles and gagging, until all the water around me flowed inside me and disappeared, like I was inhaling it against my will and couldn’t stop, and I plummeted down, back into my shower, falling into a fetal position curled around the drain.
When I could move, I crawled out of my shower and puked dark salt water onto my bathroom floor.
Chapter Forty-Nine
My first cogent thought was that I wanted to brush my teeth and I was afraid to turn on the sink.
I clambered up my towel rack, shivering, grabbing a towel to dry myself off. My badge was lying on the ground in my shower, its lanyard halfway down the drain. I retrieved it, and slammed the shower door shut afterward. I threw a second towel down on the mess I made and ran out of the room.
I sat on my bed, knees to my chest, with my hands clutched over my mouth. My trial was forgotten … or maybe this was it somehow, already begun.
German began from the other room and my phone rang. I got it off my nightstand.
I looked at the number. Ti. Last time I’d seen him, he’d been missing half his face—but …
“Ti—you wouldn’t guess what just—”
A different voice cut me off. “Edie? It’s Rita. Madigan’s wife.”
That made more sense. “I remember. How is Ti?”
“About that—look—Edie,” she began. “My family, we pass for normal. We’re good people, Edie. You met us, you know that, right?”
I nodded into the emptiness of my bedroom, wondering what her speech had to do with me. “Of course. Rita, what—”
“And there’s no moon tonight, Edie. That meant that Madigan couldn’t stop him. We’re all normal, all human, tonight. There’s nothing we could have done.”
I crept to the edge of my bed. Grandfather’s German went up another notch in volume. “Rita, what are you talking about?”
My doorbell rang.
“I’ve got to get the door now—” I stood.
“Edie, don’t answer it,” Rita said.
“What?” I pulled on my robe and ran down the hall to look through the peephole. A man with broad shoulders, a hat, and a high scarf was there.
“Madigan didn’t want me to call. But—we’re the same, Edie. I thought you’d want to know. He’s done horrible things and you don’t want any part of what he’s done.”
Outside, the man knocked.
“Edie,” said a slurred voice that I thought I recognized. “Edie, let me in.”
The man outside looked up at me. I recognized his eyes. “Gotta go,” I told Rita and hung up.
Chapter Fifty
“Edie, please. Open up.”
I looked out the peephole at him, looking in. He
“How is it that you can talk?” I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the door. What was it the wolf pretending to be the grandmother had told Little Red Riding Hood about his teeth?
“Edie—” Ti said from outside, his voice still slurred. “Edie, come on.”
“Not until you tell me how it is that you can talk.” I could still taste salt on my tongue.
There was a slam against the far side of the door. It rattled in its hinges and I jumped back. “Edie, they’re going to kill you. We’ve got to leave here, now.”
I reached out for the doorknob and opened the door with the safety chain on, for all the good it’d do me. “What about the trial?”
“It’s a sham, Edie. Go pack some things. We’re leaving now. We’ve got to hurry.”
I stared at what I could see of him, underneath his hat, and above the scarf, the eyes I knew, and wondered what I couldn’t see. Those eyes—I remembered them. Staring down at me as he’d covered me with his body, intense and earnest. “Please, Edie—we’ve got to go.”
I unlocked the door, and ran back into the safety of my bedroom. I pulled on clothing as fast as I could, and hauled out my biggest bag. I threw things into it quickly, stupid things, things you could buy at a drugstore, a fistful of underwear, an old hairbrush, a half-empty bottle of Diet Coke. Grandfather’s voice became commanding. I chunked him into the bag too.
“Hurry!” Ti urged from the hallway.
I upended a bag of cat food in the kitchen, and set the faucet onto low. Grandfather’s commentary was
