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“They began doing this in my name,” Lilith added, sounding more annoyed than anything else. “But were never mine.”

“What is all this?” I asked her.

“Chaos.” She shrugged, leading Melody away from the house.

I pushed off the fence and started toward the back stairs. My legs were shaking. My vision was swimming. I didn’t care. Jude broke another spell of unknown chaos, and I needed to find out if he was in one piece or not.

39

JUDE

I blinked up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Fluorescent lights. Beige walls. A tiny room with two doors and a single window. The outer door was solid, with a large window set into it, blinds on the inside, cracked open just enough to hint at a hallway beyond. The other door was a nightmare of institutional design: a foot off the floor, barely three feet high. Just enough to give privacy for the physical parts of using a bathroom, and not much else.

I tried to sit up. My body screamed in protest. My left arm was wrapped in something heavy and stiff, a cast. A paper bracelet wrapped my right wrist, and my ribs throbbed with every shallow breath. My face felt tight, swollen, like someone had used it for target practice.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to find the memory. Fragments flickered at the edge of my mind of a window, a kiss, a door bursting open. Then nothing.

What was I missing?

The covered window and dim light through the interior curtain made me think evening, but the longer I tried to parse my memories, how I’d wound up in this tiny single bed, hard as a rock, with a single cotton blanket, and lights built into the base of the bed to keep the room from complete darkness, the more confused I became.

Shadows lingered in the corner below the window, thick and black, more like a smudge of dark paint than actual shadow. Every time I looked away, they seemed to move, inching further up the wall. They were at the wrong angle to grow from the minimal source of light, which meant they weren’t shadows at all.

I stared at them, feeling like they stared back.

A soft click broke the silence. The outer door swung open, and a man stepped inside, maybe mid-twenties, wearing pale blue scrubs, carrying a tray. He gave me a hesitant smile. “You’re awake. I’m your night nurse, Micah.”

I stared at him, unwilling to move for fear the shadows might launch from the corner and eat me.

“Jude?” Micah prodded, still lingering in the doorway. “I’d like to sit you at a table in the common area to eat, but I can stay in here if you want.”

Choices. Eat in here with him, or out there where everyone could watch me. I didn’t want either.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Can I check your bandages?” he tried as he set the tray on the table beside the narrow bed.

I glanced from him to the wall, then away. Too tired to really do anything.

He followed my gaze to the section of wall where the shadows lingered. “Is something there?”

Did he see something too?

But when I looked back at him, he was looking at me, not the shadow.

Our gazes met for a long minute. His was questioning. Mine was probably confused. But he approached, arms held out careful and offering. “Let’s get you seated. Maybe you can pick at the food a little while I check you over.”

He helped me sit up, one hand steady on my back, the other guiding my good arm. Every movement sent a fresh wave of pain through my ribs, and I couldn’t quite bite back the hiss that escaped through my teeth.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “Almost there.”

He slid a pillow behind my back and adjusted the tray across my lap. Opening the lid to reveal some sort of chicken and veggies with rice mix. It looked very bland and unappealing.

The nurse pulled up a plastic chair and sat beside the bed. “Let me see your right wrist first.”

I held out my right arm, covered in bandages. He glanced at the wristband, then carefully unwound the wrapping, setting the old gauze aside and pulling a fresh batch from one of his pockets.