rescheduled an early dinner with her tonight.
Five hours of sleep and twelve snoozes later, I got up again. It was only three. I tied my hair up, bent at odd angles since I’d slept on it wet, and headed for the train. I got off at the stop before my mother’s to get her a small bouquet of flowers from an upscale liquor store. Then I hopped back on and off and walked up to her door.
Three knocks, and I waited. Nothing. I was reaching up to knock again when the door opened. Peter.
“Hey—”
“Your mother’s sleeping.” He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
“I can wait—”
“She was up all night, worried sick about you. I’m not waking her up, after the stunt you pulled.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to reach for the door handle. He didn’t slap my hand away, but I could see him thinking it. “I really was sick!”
He looked me up and down. I looked tired, maybe, but not ill. He knew what ill looked like. Ill was sleeping inside, right now.
“I’m not lying!” I protested.
“Keep your voice down,” he snapped at me.
“Peter—she’s my own mother. You can’t stop me from seeing her,” I said in clipped tones.
“She needs her rest right now. More than she needs to see you.” He inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Look, Edie, you and I have always gotten along. So you get another chance. But not today, not right now. I’ll tell her you came by.”
I could not believe I was being stopped. I wanted to yell at him, but what would that do? Wake my mother, so she’d stumble to the door and see us fighting? That wouldn’t do. “Here.” I shoved the bouquet forward. “They’re for her.”
He looked down at the flowers, but didn’t take them. “She’s neutropenic. You should know better.” And with that, he went back inside and closed the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Neutropenic people couldn’t get flowers or fresh fruit, or anything else that might have germs on it. I knew that—flowers weren’t allowed on ICU floors. And of course my mom was neutropenic, after all her rounds of chemo. She’d be lucky to have four intact white blood cells left to rub together, like the last few floating Cheerios in a cereal bowl.
I couldn’t believe it had happened, all the way home. That I’d forgotten, and that Peter’d rebuffed me. I went back to my apartment on the train, stunned and angry, and barely remembered to get off at my stop. It was drizzling as I walked in. I was halfway up the stairs to my apartment when I realized I’d left the flowers behind on my seat.
I forced myself to eat a dinner of whatever was left in my fridge. Just before nightfall, I heard a knock. Catrina was standing outside my front door. I held it open for her. “Welcome to casa de la crazy.”
Snorting, she walked in to sit down on my couch. “What now?”
“We’re on Jorgen’s time line. I’m sure he’ll show up.” He still wanted me to go with him—and now I needed something in return. I sat down on the opposite end of my couch. I’d already gotten ready. I was wearing mostly black. I’d taken the cross I’d had Olympio buy and strung it on a long string hung around my neck; my old badge from work was in my back pocket. I was super prepared to make bad decisions.
Catrina had Adriana’s sweater out, across her lap. She’d worn sensible boots, and I thought I could see the outline of a knife hilt at their top. Of course.
“How’d your sister meet Luz anyway?”
“You even know her real name.”
“Yeah. We go back awhile.”
Catrina’s eyes narrowed in thought as she looked at me. “I underestimated you.”
“I’m … sorry?” I guessed. I didn’t know what to say.
She hugged the sweater to herself and leaned back into the couch. “My sister used to have some problems. She hung out with the wrong crowd. One night, things weren’t going well for her. Luz rescued her from a bad situation. And Luz wasn’t doing so well herself, on her own. They … started hanging out. Together.” I tried to fill in the gaps in Catrina’s story with my imagination. Leaping from saving someone’s life to being on a pink-heart basis. Catrina watched me closely out of the corner of her eye. “They are in love.”
I already knew as much. It wasn’t the pink heart that gave it away, but the look on Luz’s face when she spoke of Adriana, and the warning bruise she’d left on my ankle. “When’d you know she was a vampire?”
“When she tried to kill my cat.” Catrina snorted. “I didn’t want to believe, but the stories Adriana told me, and how she’d saved her—I have the
Well, I’d had no idea Luz would become the world’s first socially conscious vampire when I’d met her. I wondered if Anna had had a hand in that. “What’ll happen if your sister doesn’t … come back?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Catrina was interrupted by a thump. She jumped, and Minnie bolted from the kitchen to the bedroom.
“Sorry. That’s our ride.”
We went to the door and Jorgen was there. “Hey. You’re here because you need me to help Dren, right?” I didn’t want to think of what was wrong with Dren that he couldn’t help himself, or that Jorgen couldn’t waltz in and fix. Jorgen nodded, his black eyes fixed on me.
“Okay—well, we need to make a deal.” I really hoped that my neighbors weren’t looking out right now, seeing me talk to empty space. “I need you to find someone else for me first. Then—and only then—can we go help Dren.”
Jorgen went back to all fours and leaned forward, his face very near to mine. His breath stank, and he tilted so that I could see into his nearest black eye. In that one eye was all the hatred Jorgen felt for me, for the situation he was in—where I had put him. He’d kill me if he could—but he needed me right now. We’d get along until then, was what that eye told me, but afterward? Who knew.
I looked back into my apartment and waved to Catrina. “Okay. Let’s go.”
She let Jorgen smell her precious sweater. I’d never seen a Hound do what one does before. He was still for a moment, waiting. And then I’d have sworn he seemed pleased. He bounded to the bottom of the stairs, rippling like a weasel or ferret or some other creature with an extra half a spine, then looked back, waiting for us.
I figured we were walking toward the station halfway there. Catrina was quiet, just watching Jorgen pace along. The Hound could be faster than we were, but there was no point in jogging after him when we didn’t know how far we’d have to go.
“How long have you known him?” Catrina asked me.
“I first met him in December.” I didn’t want to go into the details of my past with Jorgen. “How long have you known Hector?” I deflected instead.
“Since December.”
I was a little stunned. “Really? He seems so entrenched here.”
“Oh, he is. He’s done a world of good. He was a friend of the original doctor, who was getting quite old.”
“Hmm.” That didn’t fit the picture of Hector’s life that I’d created in my head.
When we reached the station, I wondered how Jorgen would get through. I fed in my card for myself and Catrina, and the turnstile clicked as we passed through. I looked back at Jorgen, trapped on the other side.
