No.
The clipboard lies in pieces by my legs. The doorstop Jesse used to prevent me from getting locked inside—gone.
I’m trapped in a mortuary with something that wants to kill me. Something I can’t kill.
Horror rises inside me like volcanic lava. I crawl under the metal slabs, skittering away from the clawed fingers swiping for me. My chest heaves, my need for air stronger than my aversion to the chemical odors wafting off the body. If I can evade it long enough for Jesse to come check on me, I might make it out of here.
A hand closes around my ankle.
I shriek as my writhing body slides into the light, dragged forward by a preternatural strength. I kick the corpse’s chest as soon as I’m close enough, but it grabs my ankles and twists me onto my stomach. My head wrenches back as it grabs a fistful of my hair. At the desk, the computer suddenly flickers to life.
The image of my mother as a haughty young woman returns.
“Just because she gave you what you wanted doesn’t mean I will,” I snarl,terror and pain brewing into the most potent spite I’ve ever experienced. “Neither you, my mother, or Teta Bamba get to make my choices for me.”
A black substance beads at the edges of the monitor and runs down the screen. The dead woman kicks me in the stomach. Hard.
Pain explodes in my middle. I cough wetly, struggling to stand and crashing to the ground again. It reaches for me, and I yank two handfuls of its hair. They tear easily in my grasp.
The computer screen warps like plastic left in the heat. In place of my mother appears the same sad young girl with the half-eaten sandwich. She watches with mournful eyes as the corpse slams me into the lockers. A rusted hinge slices my shoulder blade, leaving my blood dripping down the smooth panes.
A young boy replaces the girl on the screen. Child after child, watching me with accusation and despondency.
The corpse hurls me into Mr. Talbot’s tool table, and dozens of forensic instruments shatter with the impact. Scissors and tweezers fall to the ground, their edges colliding with the tile in the sound of windchimes.
A searing agony knifes through my leg. Against my will, I glance down at my thigh and release a strangled cry. A shard of glass the size of my palm sticks out from my upper thigh, broken off from the beaker I’d smashed.
The corpse approaches, and my fury gets the better of me. “Why are you doing this?” I shout. “What do you want from me?”
I yank out the glass with a sob wrenched from my very soul. I wait until the corpse gets close and shove the shard deep into the side of its neck. A dribble of dark liquid seeps from the wound, dripping lazily onto its shoulders.
It doesn’t falter as it dispassionately grabs my hair and drags me across the floor of the mortuary. I manage to swipe a pair of scissors from the ground and hack at the body’s legs and arm, anything I can reach. Its grip doesn’t budge.
The corpse slams my head against the table again. The thin skin at my temple breaks. Blood trickles down the side of my face. The scissors clatter to the ground, freed from my limp grip.
By the time the corpse pulls its arm back for the third time, I’m deadweight. Floating somewhere above it all. I barely register when it suddenly drops me or when its dismembered arm flops to the ground.
Jesse drops beside me. His mouth is moving, and I think he might be shouting, but my ears buzz too loudly to decipher his words. A face as lovely as his should never look so upset. I try to find my mouth to tell him as much, but it floats out of my reach.
From what seems like a great distance, I hear Jesse call, “I’m bringing her inside. You have to stay in a different room!”
Arms gently lift me from the ground. My head lolls to the side, and I absently note that I’m bleeding onto Jesse’s jacket. “Sorry,” I slur. Keeping my eyes open is getting harder. I think I tell Jesse I’ll buy him detergent for the stain. He makes a noise like I’ve just run a knife through him.
“Don’t worry about my goddamn jacket,” Jesse growls. “Open your eyes, Mansour. You have to stay awake, okay?”
I’m getting tired of finding myself in situations where I need to stay awake. Why can’t sleep be the answer for once? A nice, long sleep. Full of happy dreams and pillows that never get hot.
“I shouldn’t have left you down here,” Jesse continues. It takes me a second to identify the undercurrent in his strained voice: guilt. “If I thought there was the slightest chance—it animated acorpse—“
“Not your fault,” I mumble. Jesse takes the stairs two at a time. The motion jostles the wounds on my temple and thigh. My whole body feels like a giant, throbbing bruise. The corpse hurled me around the mortuary, and my fading adrenaline is bringing the pain home to roost.
“It’s not even that bad, Mina,” Jesse says lightly. “Just a little bleeding here and there. Barely worth a second look.”
Jesse lays me down in a cradle of blankets and pillows. His bed. When he moves to leave, a spurt of terror gives me the strength to grab his hand.
“I just need supplies to fix you up. I’ll be right back,” he promises. A quick squeeze. “Stay awake, little cheerleader.”
“Dancer,” I groan. Jesse grins briefly, and I let him go. He won’t be long. He always comes back.
