The Patient Who Knew Me

the clicks the way I always did on the long stretch of th

lver still visible under the skin above his heart where the bullet had lodged and stayed. Nobody at Valley Regional asked why a comatose man had a piece of metal in his chest that no surgeon would remove. Nobody asked w

nd something else, something warm and dark that I had spent seven years pretending not to notice. It s

-seven of those clicks already. I was tired.

and m

yself it was a reflex, the kind of thing that happened with patients like him, the bo

for seven years. It was strong and certain, and it pulled me down unt

r, gold at the edges

like my Gam

me like a shock of cold water. I tried to pull back and he held on. His thumb moved agains

of me,

under the thin hospital gown. "Pine. Wolfsbane.

llway. I could feel the heat of his hand through my skin, and under that heat something else, a pull low in my belly, a stirring in the

me," he said. "Ga

dy. Good. Steady was the only thing I had left. "You have been asl

he pipes. The cold comes through the wall in January. You wear a blue c

n from the parking lot with snow in my hair, and I had nev

e you?"

if he had been holding it. "Caleb Rourke. And you are

t the clear fluid running down the line into his arm, and the floor seeme

oison?"

. It has been keeping me here since the night I fell. Whoe

ter year, of the way the bags were always already prepared when I arrived for my shift. I thought

is hospital has been poisonin

nst my wrist again, and I felt the mark before I saw it, a warm line of heat that started at t

e color of moonlight on water. It had not been there when I came into the room. It had not been there when I checked his pulse a

oot of the bed hit the backs of my legs. "No. I have a son. I h

es sharpened. "How

room seven, and the door swung shut behind me with a soft click, and I stood in the

nt lights hummed overhead. At the nur

the mark was a burn from the hot water in the sink, that the pull I felt was exhaustion, that the word Gamma had come from the sa

ra, this is the front desk. There is a man down here asking for room

till warm, and from the direction of room seven I heard a low sou

s a g