For a fleeting moment, I almost listened to them.
Then I glanced back and caught the glimmer of genuine concern in his eyes. It was small, barely there, but enough to make some hidden part of me wonder if he actually cared.
“Yeah,” I replied quietly. “Me too.”
I walked out before the voices could convince me otherwise.
Chapter twenty
"Merge"
Isat low in the corner of the ER waiting room, hoodie pulled over my head and face shadowed beneath the harsh lights overhead. The entire place smelled like Lysol, stale coffee, and human suffering.
I shifted in the stiff plastic chair, stretching my legs out while one knee bounced slowly with irritation.
Between the screaming toddlers, loud televisions, coughing patients, irritated adults snapping at receptionists, and doctors being paged over the intercom every damn minute, the place felt one inconvenience away from a full-blown riot. That shit alone was enough to driveanybodyinsane.
I glanced at the clock mounted above the nurses’ station.
7:11 P.M.
I huffed quietly, jaw tightening.
I’d been sitting there for at least a good fifteen minutes chasing a ghost and following a tip that was probably bullshit from the jump.
Maybe Ma O’s gift isn’t as sharp as it used to be?
For years I watched that lady predict things that later came true in ways that made people nervous to even joke around her. But sitting in that chaotic emergency room and nothing catching my eye? That felt less prophetic and more like I got tricked into wasting gas and patience.
I rubbed my thumb slowly across my bottom lip, debating how much longer I planned on sitting in that overcrowded hellhole before walking out.
My eyes swept the room again and I clocked everybody instinctively. I catalogued every face, every movement, and every potential threat.
To my right, a janitor dragged a mop across the floor like he hated both his job and everybody breathing around him. A security guard by the vending machine scrolling his phone as if he was getting paid to ignore the world. Over to my left, an old man coughed violently in the corner like he was trying to expel dust from the nineteen hundreds. A tired-looking woman bounced a screaming toddler on her hip while arguing with the receptionist about insurance coverage. Across from them, a shirtless dude with a bloody towel wrapped around his hand kept muttering that he “didn’t even punch him that hard.” Then there was a pale junkie-looking white dude sitting two chairs over rocking back and forth dramatically while clutching his stomach.
“The pain is coming back!” he groaned loudly.
Yeah…. definitely faking.
Probably trying to score pills.
I still wasn’t sure whatorwho the hell I was supposed to be looking for… which only irritated me more.
“Fuck this!” I muttered, standing abruptly.
The plastic chair scraped against linoleum loud enough to make a few heads turn.
I didn't care.
I was just about to push through those sliding doors and disappear into the night when sudden yelling erupted near the front desk.
“Lady, it’s been a whole hour! My baby won’t stop crying! I need to see a doctornow!” a woman demanded, as her baby wailed loudly in her arms.
The entire waiting room shifted slightly toward the noise… including me. And the second my eyes landed on the woman at that desk, my blood didn't just run cold, it froze solid in my veins.
“Talia? The fuck?” I cursed under my breath.
She stood near the front desk in an oversized pink hoodie and fitted cap, bouncing the screaming baby against her shoulder while going back and forth with the receptionist like the next wrong answer might send her completely over the edge.
