Suddenly, she hears voices from the hallway.
“… burning hot. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“I’ll take a look at him.”
Selina thinks fast. She pushes the wheelchair with Jonas out into the bathroom and closes the door behind her half a second before Pennie and a doctor enter the room.
“What the heck?” Jonas’s mom exclaims. “Where is he?”
Selina stares at the bathroom door, her heart pounding. What was she thinking? She’s trapped. Any moment one of them will open the door and find her. Then, out of nowhere, an idea occurs to her. Before she can think about it, she flushes the toilet and goes to open the door.
Pennie and an elderly male doctor are standing by the bed, both of them turning as they hear her. Selina makes sure to close the door quickly behind herself.
“There you are!” Pennie says, her eyes wide. “Where’s Jonas?”
Selina looks at the empty bed, trying to conjure up a look of surprise, but feeling absolutely transparent. “I … don’t know. I was just in the bathroom for two minutes.”
“He probably felt better and went for a stroll,” the doctor suggests.
“Or he’s wandered off in a delirious state!” Pennie exclaims, turning to Selina. “Why didn’t you keep an eye on him like you promised?”
Selina shrinks. “Sorry … I really needed to pee.”
“I want him found—right now!” Pennie demands, looking at the doctor again. “He’s definitely not well, and I can’t bear to think what might happen if he’s wandering about all confused …”
The two of them leave the room. Selina stays behind unnoticed. She waits for a couple of seconds, then goes to the bathroom, pushes Jonas back out and checks the hallway to make sure the coast is clear. It is.
Selina rolls Jonas down to the elevator, trotting fast and looking in every direction. She can’t believe she’s really doing this. It’s like her body is acting on its own. She almost feels dizzy.
An old man comes out from a room just as Selina passes it, and she almost gives off a scream. But the man is a patient and looks very fragile. He hardly looks up as he shuffles past her.
Selina rolls on, reaches the elevator and pounds the button. The doors open right away. It’s empty. She rolls Jonas inside and stares at the row of buttons. Where will she take him? What is the plan? She hadn’t really expected to come this far. If she brings him out of the hospital, they’ll soon attract attention. And where would she go? No, she can’t leave the building. She just needs to find somewhere without any people.
She pushes the lower most button. The doors close and the elevator takes them down through the building.
Selina wipes sweat from her eye and looks at Jonas. His chin is resting on his chest. He’s still breathing, but very faintly so.
The elevator stops and the doors open.
The basement hallway is empty in both directions. Against the wall is standing a row of unused beds and wheelchairs. Selina pushes Jonas aimlessly down the hallway. She passes a door and stops to check it. It’s a broom closet. She tries the next one. That one’s locked. The third door is the lucky one: it’s a tiny room with a lot of shelves filled up with all kinds of tools. And the door has an inside lock.
Selina pushes Jonas inside and checks one last time that no one is around to see her—there isn’t—and then she closes the door and locks it. As her fingers turn the lock, she gets a moment of strange clarity.
She realizes without a shadow of a doubt that the next time her fingers will touch this lock, those fingers will have done something absolutely horrible, something she’ll probably never forgive herself for.
And even if Selina lives to be a hundred, the next few minutes will be the worst minutes of her life.
SIXTEEN
She spends ten minutes preparing herself. She knows it’s exactly ten minutes, because she keeps checking her watch. As though that would somehow help her. Like she’s hoping time will suddenly jump ahead an hour and all of this will be in the past.
It doesn’t work like that, of course. She needs to go through with it. She needs to act.
Jonas’s breathing has become less and less audible until the point where she’s not sure whether it’s still there. He hasn’t moved at all. He’s obviously far away, like in a coma maybe.
Still, she decides to pull out her shoelaces and use them to tie his wrists to the wheelchair. Just in case.
Her gaze has reluctantly started scanning the shelves. They’re full of tools and equipment. Full of possibilities. Like fate decided to put her in exactly this room.
There are hammers, crowbars, screwdrivers, even a saw, not to mention a wide variety of electrical instruments. She can make this like something out of a movie. She can make it exactly as dramatic as she wants.
But Selina doesn’t want it to be dramatic. She just wants to get it done as easy and painless as possible. She decides on a box cutter on the lowest shelf.
Her legs shake as she goes to take it. She fumbles a little with it before she manages to push out the blade. It’s brand new and very sharp. She glances at Jonas’s wrists. She might even be able to make it look like suicide. If she gets it done quickly and makes sure to be far away from the hospital once they find Jonas, they’ll probably think that he—
Selina bursts abruptly into tears. What is she thinking? It’s
